No One Rides For Free - Larry Beinhart (23 page)

"So what if I said yes, yes, I'm screwing her?"

"Then go right ahead!" she yelled. "Go
right ahead, pack your bags, get out of the house and screw your
little prick off!"

"I'm sorry," I said, shuffling toward her.
"Forgive me, I'm irritable, mean and nasty. I've got two busted
ribs and a bullet hole in my arm. " Thank God. "In fact, if
you'l1 help me, I want to change this shirt. I'm bleeding through
again."

I started unbuttoning the shirt so she could see the
contusions around the ribs. She looked at them in shock, then noticed
the redness oozing from my upper arm.

"Are you all right?"

"I was just pissed. I'm sorry, I shouldn't've
said that. You know how I get sometimes. Ms. Wood, as far as I'm
concerned, is just a client. She is a very anxious little JAP. She
has a tendency to hysteria. She hates her mother. She feels guilty
about her father. She doesn't trust her lawyer. She feels she has no
one in the world to turn to except me. Sometimes she even says I'm an
angel. But I can't help that. It's still a job. It pays very good
bucks; we're talking triple what I get from some people, which I
deserve if people are going to shoot at me, and as far as I'm
concerned that's it."

I got dizzy and let it happen and clutched on to her.
A brief black swirl passed me by and her face was there, swallowing
and blinking back tears, when it was gone. "Baby, I need you,"
I said. That, at least, seemed true.

Glenda helped me get my shirt off.

"She's the pretty one, isn't she?"

"I'll tell you a story about Ms. Wood," I
said. "I went to see her to give her an update. While I was
there, her mother called and wanted to meet her for lunch. Christina
got very upset, started yelling at the woman and said she had plans.
She really got upset that her mother had the presumption to call at
the last minute. I figured her plans must be something really
important, so I asked her what they were. She says, very seriously,
'I was going to Bloomingdale's to buy bathing suits.' "

"I bet," Glenda said, "she wears the
kind I don't dare."

"That was not the point of the story."

"I'm sorry, I shouldn't have listened to your
machine,"

Glenda said, full of false contrition and real
regret.

It struck me funny. I started to laugh. It hurt, of
course, and I had to hold my ribs still against the laugh heaves.

"What?" she demanded to know, "are you
laughing at?"

"
Listening to other people's machines," I
tried to explain. "As in 'I'm worried about Harry, have you
heard his machine lately,' or 'She looks like butter wouldn't melt in
her mouth, but you should hear her machine.' " The laughter
loosened fear's clutch, and I wanted to feel warm and affectionate.
"Why don't you," I said, "come here and give me a
kiss."

"Why should I?"

"Because I'm glad to be home, and with the woman
I live with and love."

“
Are you sure?"

"Sure, I'm sure," I said, and she came into
my arms, carefully. "Will you help me get on a shirt and get
home?"

"Yes," she said.

"And hold me, don't let me slip away back to my
same old used-to-be. "

"What happened to you?" she asked.

"Wait 'til we get home, and I'll tell you and
Wayne at the same time."

"Why?"

"It's great stuff, full of thrills, chills, car
chases and stuff."

"Better than The A-Team?" she asked,
knowing Wayne's point of reference.

"It would be," I said, "if it weren't
real."

But Wayne seemed to think it was just as good. Except
that I hadn't caught the bad guys in the end.

"We have not arrived at the end yet," I
explained; "this is one of those shows with episodes; you have
to wait 'til next week or the week after."

"Like a miniseries. "

"Yeah."

"Then are you gonna catch 'em?"

"That's a good question. "

"When you say that," Wayne said knowingly,
"it means you don't know."

"Right."

"But you'll catch 'em. You're 'Tough Tony'."

"You better go to bed now."

"Can I see your bandages again first? Just one
more look? Huh? Huh? Can I?"

After having his way with my battered body, he went
to bed.

"Truth, Tony. Is there anything between you two?
Don't lie, you know that's the one thing I can't stand."

"There is nothing going on," I said
immediately, before I had a chance to say something dumb, and I
looked her squarely and honestly in the eye as I said it.

I was exhausted. My shoes felt like they were far,
far away. Farther than effort could reach. The cocaine in my pocket
would have picked me up. But I was home now and I didn't need that
shit. With Glenda's help I undressed. She lay down beside me and, as
we were talking, I drowsed off.

Christina was there. She said, "Arise and save
what is beautiful," so I followed the sway of her hips,
downward, down the stairs. Her mouth caressed me there. On the flight
north, a stewardess named Laurie had helped me in and out of my seat,
served me drinks, declined my offer to share a cab to the city, but
left me her phone number. She walked into the dream. She lifted her
uniform skirt to the top of long naked legs. The pubic hair was
thick, curly and warmcolored. "You won't mind," I said to
Christina as Laurie moved closer. "I'll always, always hate
you," she replied, "and so will Glenda," but her mouth
grew bigger and took more of my body. There were shapes moving in
from the walls. Big men muttering, "Who's the heroine," or
"Where's the heroin," I didn't know which, but wanted to
find out. As they started jabbing the needles into my arm, I heard
Sandy laughing and laughing. "You're such a bastard," she
said. Then the sirens began.

They were real, coming up from the street through the
open window. Glenda was real. She was stroking my erection.

"You really could do it in your sleep," she
said wryly.

"Yeah, but you better climb aboard if we're
gonna make the station."

"All right," she said and straddled over
me. She moistened the tip and eased on down. Once she was in place
she gallantly raised her hand, mimed the pulling of a train whistle
and said, "Whoo awhooo."

"Chuga chug, chuga chug," I replied, and we
were off and rolling on the giggle track. It can be found in
Even
More Joy 0f Sex
in the index under funny
fuck.

"I keep thinking about you and her," she
said afterward.

"Don't," I said, and passed out.
 

23
LOVE
IN PAIN

THE RINGING PHONE
that
woke me at 11 A.M. was as vicious as a kick in the ribs. I had had
the experience to make the comparison and it was not an exaggeration.

"You get your messages?" Joey D' asked me.

"No, what?"

"The lovebird and the lawyer."

"Ahh, my clients."

"Clients, my ass."

"What did they say?"

"
They both appear eager for your presence. The
lovebird breathes a little harder about it."

"Are they both on the machine or did you take
'em?"

"Both on the Panasonic, kiddo."

"Do me a favor?"

"Sure," he said, "I'll erase 'em."

"Thanks. "

"Do yourself a favor, kiddo."

"What?" I asked.

"Tel1 the lovebird to be a little more
discreet."

"Joey D', how do you know about these things?"

"I'm a detective, ain't I?"

"Joseph, it is time for a serious answer."

"I got a call from the girl friend this morning.
The live-in, not the lovebird. Apparently your explanations of last
evening were not totally satisfactory. "

"So I covered for you, asshole. Which is more
than you deserve. I explained that victims often become fixated on
investigating officers. irrespective of that officer's conduct. That,
in point of fact, the response is so normal that it is covered in the
'Conduct and Relations with the Public' course at the academy. Even
in the ancient days when I attended and they were not so hip about
psycho-evaluation as they are in these modem days."

"What did, she say?"

"She said, 'Tanks, Joey, I feels better for
talking to you'!"

"Tanks, Joey," I said sincerely.

Getting out of bed, getting to the bathroom, brushing
my teeth, keeping my eyes open to watch my urine for blood were all
major productions. So I swallowed a perc and two aspirins, then
snorted four lines. Small ones.

Dear, dear Glenda had left coffee on the stove and it
only needed warming, thank you. I sat slumped over it and called Mr.
Haven.

"How soon can you be here to give me an update?"
he asked.

I wanted to say at least a week, but I eroded, "How
about tomorrow?"

"I will be out of town tomorrow," letting
me know in his quietly imperial way that he meant now and was paying
for it. I got two hours' grace.

I actually searched the apartment before I dared call
Christina. Even them I sat so I could see the door, in case the knob
should turn. I told her about Glenda and the tape.

"There's no place I can call you," she
said. "I don't like leaving messages with your partner; he
sounds like he resents me. I know I can't call you at home; now I
can't even leave a message on your machine."

I asked her if I could see her after my meeting.

"I have some things scheduled, but I'll try.
Tony, I don't like rearranging my life around your . . . convenience.
I'll try, but I'm not promising anything." She hung up.

Something chilly and tight moved through me. Some
close kin of fear. The thought of losing her squeezed moisture from
the pores on my back, arms and neck.

I had no more compunction about snorting up in the
men's room of a law office than I did in a police station, so when I
saw Choate Haven I didn't mind the pain too much and was able to give
him a coherent rundown of events.

"Your extraction of what is significant from
these events is actually quite adequate," he said. I wondered if
he had learned the manner from John Houseman or if Houseman had
learned it from him. "However, your suppositions appear to me to
be merely that, suppositions."

He leaned back and made himself look both thoughtful
and astute before continuing.

"Your inference that Alexander acted on behalf
of this Marcus Wellby, alleged heroin dealer, is not necessarily
supported by fact. He did not know the thrust of your investigation.
Your associate had previously been employed as a police officer, and
it is reasonable to assume that Alexander perceived your approach as,
for example, another narcotics investigation. That would explain the
facts as well, or better, than your theory.

"You are obviously aware of the weakness of your
other major supposition, that Wellby was a mere conduit. The lack of
apparent motivation and the lack of an obvious connection do not mean
that both do not exist.

"In law, as in science, the obvious inference,
the clearest and simplest explanation, is to be preferred over the
more complex, insofar as they both account for all the facts. The
principle is called Occam's Razor, as I'm sure you are aware.

"
The lack of apparent motivation and connection
between Wellby and Wood is a lack common to Wood and to everyone
else. It is therefore not a reason to dismiss Wellby as the prime
mover .... Unless I've missed something."

"No, Mr. Haven, in fact I find your analysis
very much to the point, clear and lucid. The direction of my
continued investigation should and will use your perceptions as a
basis."

"Excel1ent," he said, "what will that
be?"

"There are, in a sense, two investigations. One
is a physical trail, in D.C.: looking for Alexander's partner;
finding 'Peanut Butter' Bernard; trying to get a lead on Alexander's
executioner. Right now, the police are better equipped to handle that
than me. If they should, excuse the expression, 'crap out,' then I'll
stick my two cents in. The other investigation is the paper chase. If
Wood and Wellby had a connection it'll be in phone records, or a file
or his diary."

"That makes sense. " But before I could
heave a sigh of relief, he went on, "There are, however,
inherent problems in the procedure. Any client associated with Wood
is protected by the attorney-client privilege. I cannot permit you t
to root blindly through the papers of Edgar Wood. They contain the
affairs of our clients. Unless, of course, you were able to obtain
evidence of a quality to show cause, to search for some specific item
or items."

"If there is any trace at all, it has to be in
his papers," I said. I needed access to them.