Dead Money (22 page)

I’ve had my issues too, Jake said.

Haven’t we all, I said. Listen, I don’t mean to bore you with all this stuff. We all have problems. I shouldn’t complain. My daughter’s wonderful. I’m a successful lawyer. Don’t listen to my whining. I’ve got all my arms and legs. Hell, I’m not even missing a digit. The world is full of people worse off than me.

No, no, he said. I didn’t mean it that way.

I suddenly saw how sad a person he was. I felt a wash of sympathy. He was my buddy. My soulmate. We understood each other.

I guess that’s why I became an actor, he said.

Right, I said, pretending to know what he meant.

So I could live in an imaginary world, he amplified. The real world was so fucked up. Is so fucked up.

You said it.

My father was a creep.

I didn’t say anything. He was gearing up to tell the whole story.

We all need a confessor.

His father was a drunk, he told me. A mean drunk. He beat Jake’s mother. He broke Jake’s leg when Jake was eight. Kicked him. Because Jake had skipped school. Jake’s sister was older. Didn’t want anything to do with the family. Jake thought he knew why. His father had abused her. Snuck into her room late at night. Unspeakable things.

Dark, said Jake, it’s all darkness.

There were tears in his eyes.

WE WEAVED DOWN THE BLOCK
. I thought I’d lost my keys. I checked every pocket twice. Jake giggled. The third time round, I found them. In the first pocket I’d checked. Jake giggled some more. It took me five tries to get the key in the lock. When I finally succeeded, I looked around. To see if my new best friend wanted to come in for a nightcap.

He wasn’t there.

I was puzzled.

The dope, I mused. It slows down time. I’d probably been fiddling with the keys for ten minutes. He’d wandered off.

I shrugged.

I opened the door as quietly as I could.

I stumbled. I hung on to the banister. I kept myself upright.

Melissa sat up on the couch.

Who’s there? she said.

Sorry, I said, it’s me.

Come here, she said.

I staggered to the couch, fell down into the cushions.

She opened her arms.

My God, I thought, what’s happening?

I kept falling.

I WOKE
. I was naked on the bed. It was the middle of the night. Someone was hammering a rusty spike into my right temple. Someone was boiling vinegar and dirt in my stomach. A small deceased rodent was rotting in the back of my throat. I went into the bathroom. I felt like throwing up. I held it back. I looked in the mirror. I didn’t like what I saw.

I went back to bed. I tried to sleep. It didn’t work. I tried to read. Something about Zeno’s paradox. How you can never get from A to B. Because you always have to get halfway first, then half of that. And halfway to there. And on into infinity.

I closed my eyes again. The room slowly revolved. The blackness came.

As I drifted off to sleep, I thought of Steiglitz.

He entered my dreams.

He’s in the park. Kelly is there. She’s young. She’s a small child.

He’s playing with my daughter.

She looks afraid.

I WENT DOWNSTAIRS
.

Melissa was sprawled on the couch. She was on her back. Her mouth was open. She was snoring. A line of saliva drooled from the corner of her mouth, forming a pool on the sofa cushion.

I stood and stared.

I went back upstairs. I took a shower. I made it hot. Very hot. Maybe I was scalding myself. It felt a bit like that, through the gray metal fog. Perhaps I’d end up red and peeling, in monstrous pain. I took some comfort in the thought.

I walked dripping from the shower. I threw myself naked on the bed. I closed my eyes. I tried to reconstruct the night before. I remembered Jake. Our conversation. That I’d said too much. His revelations. His sadness. Our awkward stumble down the street. His vanishing. Where had he gone? I didn’t trust my memory. Melissa, beckoning me. And then? I wasn’t sure. Could it have been? That she’d have welcomed me like that?

She was bent over the coffee table, face down, legs apart. I was holding her hips, lifting her in the air. I was strong. I was hard. I pulled her up. I dragged her across the room. She moaned. She wanted more. Take me hard, she said. Show me who’s a man. I propped her up against the mirror. I took her. Took her hard and long. I was taking out the misery of years. She wanted it. She begged for more. Hurt me, she said, tears and mascara streaking the mirror.

I threw her down. I left her there. It felt right.

Had that been me?

I didn’t know.

I wasn’t sure I wanted to.

I shook my head. Get a grip, I told myself.

I tossed on some clothes. I didn’t take the trouble to look for something clean.

I dragged myself downstairs. She was still there. On the sofa. Her mouth hung open.

I averted my eyes. I didn’t want to see.

I SAT IN MY EXPENSIVE
ergonomic chair. I looked at the phone. It beckoned me. I was receptive to its charms. This was curious. I usually shunned it. I picked it up. I made some phone calls.

I knew from decades on this planet, and hundreds of hours on Sheila’s black leather couch, that when I worked like this, picked up the phone, made calls, it meant the weight was lifting. The serotonins were uptaking, or being inhibited from uptaking, or re-uptaking. Whatever it was they did when they did it right. I didn’t know why. I never did. It was random. But I wasn’t going to complain.

The twins. There was something about them. I couldn’t put my finger on it.

I tracked down a guy I knew. A guy who knew a guy who knew the twins. Set up a meet. Hound Dog Bar and Grill. Downtown and dirty. Perfect.

My source was Sammy Quantrill. Former FBI. Made a living tracking stuff down. Maybe a few other things on the side. Things you didn’t
want to ask about. Came in handy to know a guy like that. I’d used him before. He didn’t come cheap. But he was usually worth it. The guy he knew was Joey. A club guy. Owned a piece of one or two. Did a little enforcing. Only when needed.

Sammy and Joey were at the bar when I came in.

Sammy and Joey, I thought. They could start a vaudeville act.

Hey Sammy, I said instead. Good to see you.

Sure, he said. Rick, this is Joey.

Pleased to meet you, Joey, I said, extending a hand.

The same I’m sure, said Joey, with a heavy dose of Brooklyn irony. His hand enveloped mine. I admired the pinky ring, the heavy gold bracelet.

I hear you know something about these twins, I said. Ramon and Raul FitzGibbon.

Sure. I know some stuff.

So what you got?

I don’t know a whole lot direct. But I heard stuff. They got some rich daddy. Brought them over from the slums, Mexico City or somewhere, adopted them. They got some classy spread near the Park that Daddy bought them. Some penthouse thing with a huge deck on the roof. Private elevator. Servants. The works. Right next to the Museum.

They do anything for a living?

Joey snorted.

They try, he said. They’re party boys. But Daddy keeps pushing them. Get a job. Do something. Pisses him off. He came from nowhere. Worked his way up. Thinks they should too. He’s a controlling son of a bitch.

Never would have guessed, I said. So what do they do?

They think they’re some kind of designers now.

They ever do any real work? I asked.

One of them set up shop for a while as some kind of investment guy, I heard. Thought he could be a Wall Street type. A smooth operator. Got some old farts to pony up some cash. Got creamed. Lost all the old ladies’ dough. Daddy bailed him out before the lawsuits got started.

Was that Ramon or Raul?

I don’t know. Probably Raul. Ramon’s too stupid to fake it.

What do you know about Ramon?

Ramon I know from around. Got a vicious gun habit. He collects
them. Lugers from World War II. M1s. Uzis. Whatever. Worth a shit-pile, the collection. Thinks he’s some kind of a cowboy. Took some survival course down in South Carolina somewhere, off in the hills. Thinks he’s a tough guy now. Started up some security outfit. Far as I know, Daddy’s his only client, though. Everybody else knows he’s too stupid to spit and shit at the same time.

So, FitzGibbon hadn’t made it up. He really was Security.

It seemed like there was always just enough truth going around to make me doubt my doubts.

WHEN I GOT BACK TO THE OFFICE
I started a set of four-by-six file cards. On each one I meticulously wrote one and only one piece of information. I cataloged them by verifiability. One pile of substantiated facts – FitzGibbon had adopted Mexican twins. One for facts for which there was some evidence – there were some trusts, exact terms and consequences to be verified. A pile of hearsay only – Ramon’s gun collection. A pile of suppositions contradicted by other evidence – life made sense. A stack of wild speculations – anything made sense. I put a different-colored sticker on each card, depending on the category. The stickers were removable, so something could easily be shifted from one category to another.

It took me hours. I felt good. I hadn’t been so organized in years. I usually delegated this kind of work. Relied on my guys to tell me what was important. But this was different. Everything was slippery. Evanescent. Changeable. I had to be on top of it all. And anyway, I couldn’t trust anybody with it. I thought about Warwick’s reaction if he knew I’d listed his major client, and the firm’s, as a potential suspect in a murder case.

When I’d assembled the cards I tacked them on the wall in descending order of certitude. I stood back. Gazed at my creation.

Didn’t tell me a thing.

I needed to clear my head.

I logged on to the poker site.

I rarely played poker in the office. Warwick had his tentacles everywhere. He’d find out. Give me shit. But I was starting not to care. I’d take the chance.

I played aggressive but selective. I got into the zone. I felt the power. Life was good. There was a future. I went to a high no-limit table. I put it all on a pair of Sixes.

Doyle Brunson, twice world champion, believes in ESP. Now, I don’t believe in ESP, really. But then, there have been times. There have been times when I just knew. I just knew, with the certainty that foments revolution, that the next card out was going to be a Six. Make my trips. Three Sixes. Take their money.

It happened. Two thousand bucks in a nanosecond.

Yes, life was good.

I logged off. Sat back. It took wisdom, I told myself, to step away. Take your wad. Sit back. Enjoy it. Play later. This went against the sages’ advice. When you quit or when you stayed made no difference, they said. Take the long-term view. It’s a lifetime gig, my man. The next hand has as much potential as the last. No more, no less. It’s like flipping coins. A hundred heads come up, two, three, five hundred. What are the odds of heads coming up again? Fifty-fifty. Just like always.

I didn’t believe it.

I understood it. I could not refute it. I just didn’t believe it.

Dorita stuck her head in the door.

What’s this? she asked.

I’m wallowing in poker madness.

No, this.

She pointed to the cards on the wall.

I’m organizing the Jules data.

She walked over to the wall. She looked over my masterpiece. She stood back. She lit a cigarette.

There’s a rule about smoking in the office, I said.

Right, she said, tapping some ashes onto the carpet.

Computers are great, she continued. But sometimes file cards are better.

The screen is bigger, I said.

You can see it all at once.

Right.

Although.

Although?

It still doesn’t speak to me.

Nor me, I said. Except in a whisper.

There’s a whisper?

There is. Keep it up, it says. Keep adding pieces. And if you’re a very good boy, I’ll tell you something. Something good. Something satisfying.

Wow. That’s one hell of a whisper.

I know. I think I’ll keep it on the payroll.

THE PHONE RANG
. I picked it up.

Redman, I announced with authority.

I was in control. I was ready for battle.

Daddy! Why in Jesus’ name didn’t you wake me up!

I’m sorry, love, I said. I thought maybe you deserved a day off.

Oh God, she said. Oh Daddy. Come home. Come home now.

What’s the matter, precious?

Never mind, Daddy. Just get the hell home, okay?

WHEN I GOT THERE
it was clear that it was bad. Ambulance. Two squad cars. Flashing lights. Serious faces. A large square cop confronted me, jaw set. He needed a shave.

Can I help you, sir? he asked, with an unhelpful air.

This is my house, I said. What’s going on? Is somebody hurt?

His look relaxed to one of pity and concern.

I’m afraid there’s been an incident, sir, he said.

Incident? What the hell did that mean? My first thought was of Kelly. Was she all right? But she had called me. She hadn’t sounded hurt. Just frightened.

Strange that the obvious thought did not strike me first. That something had happened to Melissa. I can’t explain it, even now.

The square-faced cop escorted me into my own living room. The room was filled with people. People in white, people in blue. People snapping cameras. People taking notes. And there, in the middle of it all, on the couch, Melissa. The same pose as that morning.

Oh God, she’d been gone the whole time. Or going, which was worse.

I’d blithely walked on by, slammed the door, lost in anger and embarrassment. While she lay dying. Right then. Right there. And I had known. Somehow, I had known. God, I had known. And I’d done nothing.

A stabbing pain started in my stomach, shot through my spine, into my teeth and jaw. A disabling pain. I fell to my knees. Nothing made sense. I knew the pain wasn’t physical. It was the pain of loss. Blame. Confusion. Thoughts and fears rampant in my head.