Over the Edge (51 page)

'Mr. Balch, this is Dr. Alex Delaware. Alex, Mr. Bradford Balch. Esquire.'

Balch's hand was fine-boned and cold. I let go of it and

said:

'We've spoken on the phone.'

The attorney looked blank.

'You called me to arrange a visit to the Chancellor estate.'

'Oh, that,' he said, and pursed his lips. The memory of being used as an errand boy tasted bad. 'Why's he here?' he asked Milo.

'Consultant.'

Balch regarded me with distrust.

'I thought you were working for Mr. Souza,' he said.

'I was. Not any longer.'

'What are you here for? To check me out psychologically?'

'We've done all the checking out we need to,' said Milo. 'Have a seat and let's get down to business.'

'Sergeant,' said Balch, 'I insist that we talk alone.'

'Your insistence has been duly noted,' responded Milo, holding out a chair. 'Have a seat.'

'I'm serious, Sergeant - '

'Balch' - Milo sighed - 'you're in big trouble, and I'm letting you take a lot more than you're giving. Sp don't waste my time with power plays, okay?'

Balch blushed, and his eyes dropped to the floor. He sank down abruptly in the chair, swinging the case onto his lap, embracing it. Up close he looked very young - apple-cheeked and sandy-haired, the hair short and neatly parted, with a sprig of cowlick at the tag end of the part. His clothes

were expensive and traditional but a trace ill-fitting -button-down collar a half size too large, silk rep tie just a smidgeon off plumb. He seemed imprisoned in them, like a boy forced to be a man. 'Drink?' asked Milo. The attorney frowned prudishly. 'I just want to get this over with and get out of here.' 'Sure,' said Milo. 'This has to be ticklish for you.' 'Ticklish? It's a breach of ethics. Violation of confidentiality. If it ever gets out, I'm finished. Be lucky to get work as a paralegal.'

'No reason for it to get out.'

'So you say.' Thin, manicured fingers played with the clasps of the attaché.

'It's tough,' agreed Milo. 'Damned if you do, damned if you don't.'

'Look,' said Balch, 'how was I to know the signature was forged? Mr. Souza vouched for it. Mrs. Cadmus was right there.'

Milo's eyes hardened.

'No one expected you to be a mind reader,' he said. 'Just to follow the goddamn notary rules: No stamp unless you personally witness the signature.'

'But there was absolutely no reason to suspect forgery,' insisted Balch without passion. 'The trust had a routine provision for mental incompetence: transfer of funds back to the guardian upon written request. In view of the beneficiary's mental status, it wasn't illogical for Mr. Cadmus to activate it.'

'For the kid's own good, right?' asked Milo. 'There were documents attached certifying incompetence,' said Balch. 'It wasn't illogical,' he repeated. 'Not illogical,' agreed Milo. 'Just fraudulent.' 'I had no knowledge of that.'

'I believe that,' said Milo. 'You were slipshod, not crooked. That's why I'm giving you an opportunity to do penance.'

Balch looked ill.

'The whole notary thing was a pain in the ass,' he said.

'Souza's idea. He said a trust and estates man should be a notary, in order to streamline things. I thought it more appropriate for a secretary. I should have insisted.'

'Gotta listen to the boss, right?'

'Shit,' muttered the attorney, and looked at Milo's drained gin and tonic.

'Sure you won't have that drink?' asked the detective.

'No - oh, why the hell not? Tanqueray on the rocks with a twist.'

Milo disappeared into the bar and came back with the drink. After loosening his tie, Balch tossed it back quickly.

'It was Nixon who ruined things for notaries, wasn't it?' said Milo. 'Donating all that stuff for tax write-offs, inflating the values - how was the notary supposed to know he'd be liable. I mean, this was the president, the big boss.' He smiled. 'Seems bosses have a way of screwing the little guy over, huh?'

Balch bristled, clearly miffed at being characterised as a little guy. He stirred the ice in his glass and asked:

'What I want to know is how you found out about it.'

'Little birdie with big ears.'

The attorney thought for a while, then groaned.

'Oh, shit. The chauffeur. He was there the whole time, waiting to take Mrs. Cadmus home. I never assumed he was paying attention to what was going on. Should have, the guy always impressed me as a sleaze - how much did you pay him, Sergeant?'

Milo ignored the question.

'Shit,' said Balch, looking ready to cry.

'Think of it this way,' said Milo consolingly. 'There's a positive side. You're the first one in the firm to find out about the boss's imminent decline. Gives you a head start on the job market. Where'd you go to school?'

'Penn.'

'Ivy League. You shouldn't have any problem.'

Balch drew himself up and tried to look dignified.

'I'll be fine, Sergeant. Can we get down to business?'

'Sure. Hand over the stuff; once I'm satisfied everything's there, we'll shake hands like gentlemen.'

'Before I hand over anything, I want your assurance that my name will never come up in any part of your investigation. And that no one will ever know where you got the documents.'

'The case is too hairy for me to promise you anything more than I'll try my best.'

'Not good enough,' snapped Balch.

Mill picked up a lamb bone and gnawed at it.

'How about Cub Scout's honour?' he said, crossing his heart.

'Dammit, I'm serious, Sergeant!'

Milo put one palm on the table and leaned in close, waving the bone like a scimitar. His brows knitted, and the candle highlighted the grease on his lips, creating an altogether menacing visage, a pirate sniffing plunder.

'So am I, Counsellor,' he said. 'Dead serious. Now open that goddamn case.'

WALKING NEXT to Antrim was like wearing a cobra for a necktie. The fact that he was cooperating was singularly unreassuring; I knew what he was capable of in an instant of rage. But his presence was an important part of the setup, and I'd gone too far to turn back.

The decision to use him - and me - had been made after three hours of meetings behind closed doors. Milo had come to my house and told me about it.

'We had him call and say everything was taken care of, but it's only a matter of time before they realise he's been

busted. Their kind of money means mobility: Learjets;

Swiss accounts; villas on islands that don't extradite - look

at Vesco,
 
still out there,
 
flipping off the
 
government.

Which means if we don't move fast, we're at risk for losing

the big fish.'

'What do you want from me?'

He told me and followed it by assurances not to feel

pressured.
  
I considered the
 
alternatives,
  
measured
 
the

risks, thought of a 3:00 A.M. crisis call and all that had

happened since, and asked:

'When do you want to do it?'

'Tonight.'

They removed Antrim from his cell that evening. Bathed him, fed him, and fetched him coffee. Exchanged his prison jump suit for a full set of livery. Drove him to the cabin in the woods. And when the call had come, he'd handled it with surprising aplomb considering the ring of big, angry men surrounding him. Surprising until you realised that he was a killing machine whose twisted circuitry lacked a conduit for worry or self-doubt. With one exception: an unfathomable vulnerability when it came to a fat, hairless woman.

A police officer had actually driven the Rolls. A tall, thin, moustachioed man who, in the dark, looked enough like Antrim to be his twin. But two blocks from our destination, he'd turned into a Hancock Park cul-de-sac, parked, and stepped out. Within seconds the chauffeur had materialised from behind the trunk of a big maple, in the grip of two plainclothesmen. Uncuffed and unbound. They walked him right up to the open car door, blocking any escape. Let go of him and watched as he slid behind the wheel.

'Drive carefully,' said Milo, lying on the floor of the passenger compartment, the nose of his .38 pressed against the back of the driver's seat. 'One fuck-up, and Ms. Skull does very hard time.'

'Yo,' said the chauffeur casually. He wheeled the big car toward Wilshire, made a quick left turn, cruised for a hundred feet, and turned again, floating smoothly into the circular driveway. A silver Mercedes 380 was already there.

'Okay?' he asked. 'Should I get out?'

'Yeah,' said Milo. 'Remember, all eyes are on you.'

Antrim turned off the engine, got out, and held the door open for me, ever the faithful retainer. I exited, and we walked together toward the building. He seemed relaxed. I watched his hands, his feet, the dark eyes that moved like dung beetles scurrying across sandstone.

We approached the front steps. The door opened, and

Antrim's moustache curved upward in a smile. My throat tightened: Was the cobra coiling?

A man stepped out and stood on the top step, with one hand wedged in the door to keep it open.

Until then, despite Milo's rationale, the whole thing had seemed an unnecessary bit of production for a walk-on scene. But when I saw Souza, I knew there could have been no other way.

'Good evening, Doctor,' he said testily. He wore evening clothes that made him look like a well-fed penguin: black silk tuxedo; starched white evening shirt perforated with tiny gold studs: plum-coloured bow tie and cummerbund; patent leather pumps as shiny as molten tar.

'Good evening.' I smiled.

'I hope this is as urgent as you made it sound. The Cadmuses and I have an important social function this evening.'

'It is,' I said, with one eye still on Antrim, wondering if he'd recite his lines or try a last-minute improvisation.

The silence couldn't have lasted longer than a second, but it seemed eternal. Antrim had stepped back. Behind me, I wanted to turn, to see his face, gauge his intentions. But I couldn't risk cuing Souza to anything out of the ordinary. So, instead, I looked at the attorney, searched his eyes for absorption of a silent message. Saw only flat brown. But where was the cobra -

'Uh, Mr. Souza.'

My body tightened.

'What is it, Tully?'

'The car's low on gas. Want me to fill it?'

Bravo.

'Go ahead,' said Souza. 'Be back in half an hour to take us to the Biltmore.'

Antrim touched the visor of his cap, pivoted, and walked toward the Rolls. Souza used his fingers to push the door open.

'Come,' he said impatiently.

Inside the law building was shadowy and cold, the marble floor amplifying every clack of Souza's glossy shoes.

He walked under the winding staircase, toward the back of the mansion, moving briskly for someone of his age and build. I followed him past the law library and the photocopy room and waited as he swung open carved double doors.

The panelled walls of the dining room seemed fleshlike in the soft light, each knot a spiralling black eye. The stone mantel housed a spitting tangerine fire that, from the look of the logs, had been burning for a while. A portable Chinese rosewood bar had been wheeled next to the oval Victorian table, which had been set with cut-crystal decanters and silver-jacketed tumblers. Icy facets picked up the firelight and winked it back prismatically. The tabletop gave off a burnished glow, like a lagoon at sunset. The silk rug glimmered like iridescent moss. Very elegant. Deathly quiet.

The Cadmuses were seated next to each other, on one side of the table. Souza took his place at the head and motioned me across from them.

'Good evening,' I said.

They looked up long enough to utter frozen greetings, then pretended to be fascinated by their drinks. The room was sweet with burning cedar, heavy with the echoes of attenuated conversation. Souza offered me a drink that I declined. While he poured himself a bourbon, I gazed across the table.

Dwight looked bad, diminished by stress. In the two weeks since I'd seen him, he'd lost weight. His tuxedo bloused, and his shoulders rounded under some invisible burden. He'd removed his glasses and placed them on the table; the skin under his eyes was loose, dull, smudged with fatigue. Next to the spectacles was an empty tumbler. The film coating its sides said it hadn't been empty for long. One of the decanters was within reach. Between it and the tumbler was a hyphen of wet blisters: droplets of spilled booze.

Heather still looked girlish. Her hair had been piled high, revealing a long, porcelain neck circled by a diamond choker. Her ears were small, thin, elfin. A carat of blue-white diamond graced each lobe. She wore a gown of midnight blue chiffon. Her arms were white tendrils filmed by see-through sleeves. Between choker and decolletage was a milky triangle of chest, faintly freckled by the merest hint of cleavage. Wind streaks of rouge above her cheekbones gave her lady-in-waiting features a vaguely feverish cast. Above her wedding band was a ring set with a pear-shaped sapphire the colour of a newborn baby's eyes. Her tumbler looked untouched, filled with something rosy and sparkling.

'This had better be important,' said Dwight, words thickened by alcohol.

'Darling,' said Heather, in her little-girl voice, touching his arm gently.

'No,' he said angrily. 'Haven't we been through enough?'

She smiled at me, apologetically, and removed her fingers from his sleeve. He reached for the decanter and poured himself a double. She turned away, embarrassed, as he drained his glass.

Souza had seemed to ignore the exchange. Now he drew closer, cleared his throat, and said:

'Doctor, just what are these medical developments you were so insistent upon discussing?'

'They're more than developments,' I said enthusiastically. 'I think I've solved all your problems for you. Proved that Jamey was innocent - at least in a legal sense.'

'Really?' A millimeter of smile, a mile of scorn.

'Yes. I've asked the doctors at County General to run some lab tests to verify this, but I believe he was poisoned with a class of drugs called anticholinergics. They disrupt nervous transmission and cause exactly the type of psychotic symptoms he displayed. If I'm correct, he'd be no more responsible for his actions than a somnambulist. Certainly you could use that to get him off.'