“In other words, don’t disable the eBlaster.”
“Don’t disable the eBlaster and don’t let her pay the phone bills and credit card bills every month without you putting them under a microscope first.”
“That’s a hell of a way to have to live.”
“Yeah, but maybe it won’t be for long. You’ll both be back in Hong Kong, you can sit down and have a few more heart-to-hearts, and you can start working with a couples therapist and Del Priore can crawl back into his cave. Nancy will forget all about him and then spend the rest of her life telling you how sorry she is for what she did.”
“I hope you’re right”
“So do I.”
Nancy
During the three days before Rob’s surgery, Nancy used calling cards to phone Michael every time she got out of Rob’s sight. During the two days he was in the hospital he insisted that she stay with him around the clock, so it was only after he returned to the Pierre that she was able to make plans. Time was short. Rob had booked her a flight that left on Friday, August 15. He said he’d be fine by then and he wanted her back with the kids. Neither of them acknowledged the real reason.
Michael drove down from New Hampshire early on the morning of Thursday, August 14. He reached midtown by 11:00 a.m. and parked his van. Then he walked a few blocks to the fountain in front of the Plaza, where Nancy had said she’d meet him at noon. He was not so “country” that the city fazed him. Down South he’d spent a fair amount of time in Birmingham, and New York seemed the same, only bigger.
As soon as Rob had left the room to go downstairs for lunch with Frank Shea, Nancy took the elevator to the mezzanine level, walked down a flight of stairs, and went out a side door of the hotel. Then she ran across Fifth Avenue to the fountain. The day was hot and muggy, the air greasy and stale, but Nancy was oblivious to the weather. She had eyes only for Michael, and there he was—right where she’d told him to be.
She summoned a horse and carriage and told the driver she wanted the long trip through Central Park. It was seventy-five dollars for the forty-five-minute tour. As soon as she sat back in the carriage, she broke down in tears. She cried all the way. At the end of the ride she told the driver to go around again. This time, she was able to talk.
“I’m so frightened. If he ever finds out you’re here I’ll be the one in the hospital. I’m not kidding. He’s so used to beating me over nothing; I really think he’d try to kill me if he knew. Do you know what I wish? I wish the fucking doctor had slipped with the scalpel and done him in.”
“Hey. That’s not funny.”
“I didn’t mean it to be. Michael, you’ll never know how bad it’s been. Last Christmas, we were on vacation at a ski resort near Vancouver and he threw me against a wall so hard he broke my ribs. Why? Because I said I needed to stay in the hotel room and take care of my sick son instead of skiing.”
“Why would that make him mad?”
“Because his father said they’d come there to ski and everybody had to ski, no exceptions. He told me to have the hotel send someone up to stay with Ethan. I said no. He said he’d warned me about defying him and that this was especially bad because I was doing it in front of his father. I told him he could tell his father to kiss my ass and that he could go fuck himself while he was at it. That’s when he threw me against the wall.”
“And what happened?”
“I left with Ethan that night. I flew straight back to Hong Kong. As soon as he got back, he said he was going to punish me for defying him and he was going to teach me never to disobey him again. Ever since, whenever he wants sex—and he’s always drunk, and usually high on coke, too—I refuse, and then he rips my clothes off and forces me.”
“Oh, baby doll…”
Their second circuit around the park was almost over. They drew closer to the famed midtown hotels: the Ritz-Carlton, the Essex House, the Helmsley Park Lane, and the Plaza on Central Park South; the Trump International and the Mandarin Oriental on Columbus Circle; and on Fifth Avenue, the Sherry-Netherland, and a bit farther on, the Pierre, where Rob was just finishing lunch with Frank Shea. It was a world Nancy had come to know well. It was a world—the five-star world—on which she depended for what little self-esteem she had. It was a world Michael had never known and never would.
Even in the open carriage, the heat and humidity stifled. Sweat poured off both Nancy and Michael and flies buzzed around the neck of the horse that pulled the carriage.
“Why don’t you leave him?” Michael asked.
“I can’t. He would destroy me in a divorce. I’d lose everything. I wouldn’t walk away with a penny. And he’d probably get the children, too.”
“I can’t believe that. If you got a good lawyer—”
“Michael, you have no idea how powerful he is! And you have no idea what he’s capable of. His whole family: their only pleasure in life is grinding other people into dust.”
Nancy had booked Michael into a cheap hotel, paying cash in advance, and he stayed in the city overnight. She called him when Rob and Bill went down to the lobby for a drink and he hurried over and she met him at the elevator on her floor and they rushed into the stairwell and made love standing up, to the sound of the echoes of their moans and the smell of musty concrete.
The next day, he rode with Nancy in her taxi to the airport. Two blocks after he’d hopped into the cab she looked out the rear window and shouted: “We’re being followed! Driver, go faster!”
“What?” Michael said.
“Don’t turn around! We can’t let them know we’ve seen them. I’ve got to lie down on your lap so they won’t see me through the window.”
“But they already know you’re here. It’s your taxi.”
“Don’t contradict me, Michael. I can’t stand that.”
Once her head was in his lap, he turned around. It was mid-afternoon on a midsummer Friday in Manhattan. All he saw was heavy traffic.
“Nobody’s following us, baby doll.”
“They are! I know it!”
She wouldn’t sit up. They were creeping along the Van Wyck Expressway when she screamed: “They’re getting closer! I can feel it!”
“Baby doll, baby doll, there’s nobody there.”
“Protect me, Michael. You’ve got to promise you’ll always protect me.”
“Sure, sure. Always.”
From the start he’d known she was high-strung. But it wouldn’t be his problem any longer. He’d had the most interesting summer of his life. He’d had a love affair with the classiest, most beautiful, and richest woman he’d ever met, and he was coming out of it with a seven-thousand-dollar wristwatch. Life didn’t get better than that.
The day after she got back to Hong Kong, Nancy got an e-mail from Bryna:
hi…just thinking about you…have you settled back in? are you still double jetlagged? I know this may sound weird but…I feel that we haven’t really been connecting for awhile…I feel that it seems you have a full plate, and that we haven’t really been friends as best friends go for sometime…I miss you…If you think about it, all of our conversations are really short, kinda superficial and we really don’t talk much about anything…I know this has been a really stressful last 6 months for you, Rob and the kids, but I love you and am here for you if you feel the need…I just felt the need to say something…please tell me if you feel I’m wrong or out of line…this is just my observation
Nancy wrote back right away:
no its not wrong…your always right…and so fucking perceptive…
its mostly been me…iv had a pretty shitty summer…and dealing with my marriage has been really difficult…especially when everyone around you thinks we have the best marriage in the universe…that’s what iv been hearing for the past 15 years…
I agree to a certain extent…about the great marriage part…but during these past few years…with robs continued success…its taken it toll…we’ve both acknowledged this for some time…and have agreed to see a counselor…only
the timing has sucked…and being seperate since march…well…you know I felt like I really just wanted to be by myself all summer…kinda soul searching stuff…I tried to call you one night in new york…I was bouncing off the walls…needed to really talk…but the circuits were all fucked up…then you must have been reading my mind…cuz you called the next day…but I couldn’t really talk with rob right there…
rob had this 24-7 need and I needed to be there for him hands down
i’m off to school right now…Zoe’s first day…and yes…this double jet lag is pretty brutal!!
xo, N
Bryna replied:
as far as us talking about any stuff that’s been going on with you or me, I think its great that you would start seeing a therapist, its always good to have another persons take on things…so save it all up and tell that person not me…Open up your heart and let it all out…it’s the only way you’ll both know where you both stand with each other…15 years…a long time…history together…3 beautiful children…do your best…it is worth it…WE ALL HAVE TOUGH SPOTS…honesty is the only way to get thru…love u
Nancy wrote back:
I think I just need to start talking about life in general…rob…the kids…my self…asia…kind of a tune up so to speak…is this mid life crises…????
xo!!!!!
Midlife crisis. An interesting notion. As Joseph Campbell wrote, “Midlife is when you reach the top of the ladder and find that it was against the wrong wall.” He also wrote, “We must be willing to get rid of the life we’ve planned, so as to have the life that is waiting for us.”
And then there was Dante.
Midway in our life’s journey, I found myself
In dark woods, the right road lost.
nbsp;
During the ten days between her own arrival in Hong Kong and Rob’s return, Nancy conducted Internet searches, using the following terms: “sleeping pills,” “drug overdose,” and “medication causing heart attack.” On Sunday, August 24, she also made her first call on her new cell phone. She’d set it up so she’d be billed at the Hong Kong International School. She thought of it as her “Michael phone.” She would use it only to talk to him. Rob would never see the bills. She’d take cash out of the ATM and open a secret checking account and use that to pay the bills. She was proud of herself for planning everything so well.
The results of her Internet searches fresh in her mind, she talked to Michael for almost four hours. Later, they would both say they couldn’t remember talking about anything special. Certainly, they hadn’t talked about sleeping pills or drug overdoses or medication causing heart attack.
Autumn
19. LATE AUGUST/SEPTEMBER
ROB COULDN���T DRIVE, BUT HE RODE TO MAINE IN A LIMOUSINE to pick up Isabel from summer camp. Then the two of them flew back to Hong Kong. He e-mailed Frank Shea on Tuesday, August 26, saying his recovery was progressing more slowly than expected. He added: “The other parts of the equation don’t help.”
That evening, as was his custom when he was home, Rob poured himself a few ounces of single-malt scotch from a crystal decanter kept on a living room sideboard. He thought it tasted slightly peculiar. When he stood up, he felt so dizzy he almost fell. He was suddenly overwhelmingly sleepy. He assumed he was having a reaction to jet lag combined with the painkillers he was taking for his back.
The next day, he paid another visit to the offices of Hampton, Winter and Glynn, this time speaking to a partner named Robin Egerton. In addition to telling him that his wife was suffering from depression, he acknowledged that she was “committing adultery.” He said she’d been “unfazed” when he’d confronted her about it. He also said he didn’t want to divorce her but was considering separation. Egerton told him to keep a close eye on the children’s passports, lest Nancy try to go back to the United States and take them with her. Rob claimed he wasn’t worried about that. He said she “enjoyed the expatriate life” too much to leave it behind. Egerton also suggested that he change his will. Rob told him that was a good idea and he’d get around to it soon.
He made it a point not to take any painkillers during the day. But halfway through his evening scotch he felt the waves of wooziness coming on. This time, he didn’t finish the drink. Instead, he went to his home office and booted up eBlaster and Spector Pro to check Nancy’s e-mails and to see what Web sites she’d been visiting. He saw the search terms: “sleeping pills,” “drug overdose,” and “medication causing heart attack.”
While Rob was at work the next day, Nancy drove into Central for an appointment with a psychiatrist named Desmond Fung, whose offices were in New Henry House on Ice House Street.
She told Dr. Fung that her husband was abusing her both verbally and physically. She said they’d have terrible fights and that she was so fearful for her safety when she went to bed that she was unable to sleep. He wrote her a prescription for Stilnox, the brand name under which zolpidem was sold in Hong Kong. In the United States, zolpidem was sold as Ambien.
Over the next two nights, Rob felt even woozier from his scotch. On Sunday, August 31, he got up early so he could look through Nancy’s pocketbook while she slept. He found the bottle of Stilnox. At that point, he called Frank Shea in New York, where it was Saturday night. He described how he’d been feeling after having a drink and what he’d discovered about Nancy’s Internet searches and what he’d found in her handbag. “I don’t want to overreact,” he said, “but do you think it’s possible that she’s drugging my drinks?”
“Of course it’s possible.”
“But why would she do that?”
“Maybe she wants to knock you out so she can sneak out of the apartment and meet lover boy.”
“You don’t think he’s in Hong Kong, do you?”
“Want me to find out?”
“Can you?”
“One phone call, Rob. I can have somebody check his trailer tomorrow. It will be Sunday, so he ought to be home. Call me back in the morning, which will be Sunday night for you.”
When Rob called back, Frank confirmed that Del Priore was in New Hampshire.
“Well, that’s something to be thankful for.”
“I’m not so sure.”
“What do you mean?”
“If she’s trying to put you out of commission because she’s got him stashed at the hotel there, that’s understandable. But he’s not there, so that’s not it.”
“And so?”
“I don’t know, Rob. But if I were you, I’d stop drinking that single malt.”
As it happened, Frank had business in Hong Kong during the second week of September. He and his wife, Denise, would be there for several days, staying at the Harbour Plaza, a four-star hotel on the Kowloon side of Victoria Harbour. Although Rob was no longer a client, Frank remained concerned about him. He also enjoyed his company. When he e-mailed Rob to ask about getting together, Rob replied with an invitation for dinner at the China Club on Tuesday, September 9.
The China Club was private; it would not do for an investment banker as successful as Rob to invite guests to a restaurant that was open to the public. But even among Hong Kong’s private dining venues, the China Club was considered unique. David Tang, Hong Kong’s highest-profile and most eclectic entrepreneur, had opened it in 1991.
The place became a genuine social phenomenon that brought together political and business leaders of the East and West and encouraged them to mingle in an atmosphere of privilege, leavened with touches of quirky humor. Nowhere else in the world could one have found Princess Diana and the artist Deng Lin, daughter of Deng Xiaoping, sipping cocktails together at the Long March Bar.
In addition to its restaurant—perhaps the best in a city acclaimed for its ability to fuse the finest elements of Eastern and Western cuisine—the club contained an art gallery, library, smoking room, and recital hall, where Tang presented lectures, poetry readings, and chamber music concerts. But it was the club’s 350 works of art that garnered the most attention. Rang
ing from Maoist propaganda prototypes to the avant-garde, apolitical abstractions of the newest wave of Chinese iconoclasts, Tang’s collection, in the words of the author Orville Schell, “makes the China Club more than just a clever replication of old Shanghai for young, culturally defoliated businessmen in search of ersatz atmosphere” and transforms it into “the beating heart of Hong Kong for this new up-and-coming generation of entrepreneurs.”
Many a deal had been broached, many a multimillion-dollar commitment had been secured, many a birthday and anniversary had been celebrated, many a banquet for mainland Chinese dignitaries had been held, many a promise had been made, and many a confidence betrayed at the China Club since its opening twelve years earlier, but it is entirely possible that not until Rob Kissel dined there with Frank Shea and his wife on the night of September 9, 2003, had it been the venue in which a man was told that his wife might be planning to kill him.
Rob was still in pain, walking gingerly and relying heavily on his cane. Nonetheless, throughout the meal he played the role of gracious host. Afterward, he took the Sheas on a tour of the club. When Frank’s wife tactfully said she’d like to linger a bit with the artwork, Rob and Frank went to the smoking room, where Rob lit a large Cuban cigar. It should have been a moment of contentment. It was not.
“They’re writing to each other,” Rob said. “He’s sending his letters to the school. I found some in her handbag last week. I was wondering why she was doing so much more volunteer work this year. Now I know.”
“These are love letters?” Frank asked. “Not just letters between friends?”
Rob unfolded a piece of paper and read: “Another day down. Another day closer to seeing you. I am going crazy thinking about you. Whenever a customer comes in the store I want to say, ‘Don’t bother me. I am thinking about Nancy.’ I miss holding you, hearing your voice. I love it when you call my name. It makes me melt.”