Put a Lid on It (18 page)

“Your Honor,” Goldfarb said, beginning to sound a little desperate, “in the time frame of this situation, Mr. Mee—Francis's home environment was the Manhattan Correctional Center. None of us would want a qualified social worker's assessment of that environment. Since he was removed from that inappropriate environment, at the request of the district attorney, he has been in my custody. I am a member of the bar and an officer of the court. If you insist on a home visit to my apart—”

Sounding a bit shocked, Judge Foote said, “Is he
living
with you?”

“No, he is not,” Goldfarb said, also sounding shocked.

“I'm in the Crowne Royale, it's a hotel in Manhattan,” Meehan hastily told her, and pulled the key from his pocket. “Three-eighteen. See?”

“It's a hotel room,” Goldfarb said. “There's really not much there for a social worker to evaluate.”

“I don't have a river view,” Meehan volunteered (though one should never volunteer). “I think if I was on a higher floor, maybe I would.”

Judge Foote frowned at the documents. “The people who have already passed this along,” she said, looking down at her desk rather than at them, “are supposed to impress me and they do. There's really nothing for me at this point but to add my little bit to the farrago.”

Neither Meehan nor Goldfarb said a word. In fact, neither of them breathed.

“I suppose my objecting to minor irregularities in the midst of this monster irregularity,” she said, lifting her eyes to him, not looking happy, “merely shows an inability on my part to see the big picture. Do you see the big picture, Francis?”

“Never have, Your Honor,” Meehan told her. “I'm lucky if I make sense of the inset.”

She smiled; wintry, but a smile. “I'd love to know what this is all about,” she said, “but I know better than to ask. All right, Ms. Goldfarb, I will remand Francis Xavier Meehan into your custody.”

“Thank you, Your Honor,” Goldfarb said.

Judge Foote actually laughed; a hearty laugh, like a contralto. She said, “I think I'm getting into the swing of it. Yes, Ms. Goldfarb, I remand Francis Xavier Meehan into your custody…until his eighteenth birthday.”

“Thank you, Your Honor,” said Goldfarb and Meehan.

34

T
HE LIMO WAS
supposed to wait for them, and there it was, in the No Standing Zone in front of the building, the chauffeur at the wheel, reading the
Amsterdam News
, while hundreds of cops, along with lawyers and felons and witnesses and family members and people in bandages, moved in and out of and all around the building. There were no other vehicles stopped anywhere along there, so apparently some cars were more equal than others.

Meehan had been afraid to speak during their journey through the halls and elevator and across the sidewalk, but once they were safely in the limo he said, “Didn't she know anything about the story at
all?
”

“Wait,” Goldfarb said. “Let me call Jeffords.” And she pulled a little cellphone out of her shoulderbag.

So Meehan waited, and listened to Goldfarb greet Jeffords and tell him everything had worked out okay. Then she moved forward to the rear-facing seats and extended the phone to the chauffeur, saying, “He's going to give you directions to the restaurant.”

The chauffeur took the phone, listened, nodded, made some notes on a pad suction-cupped to the dashboard, and gave the phone back. Then he waited for Goldfarb to come sit beside Meehan again before he started up.

“A little,” Goldfarb said.

Meehan looked at her. “A little what?”

“She had been told a little,” Goldfarb explained.

“Oh, the judge.”

“That's the question you asked me.”

“Yeah, I did, I remember that.”

“I don't know who talked to her,” Goldfarb said, “but she would have been told it was a special case with some oddities in it.”

“I
guess
.”

“Before she saw the documents in the case,” Goldfarb went on, “and the people who'd already signed off, it would not have been a good idea to tell her the oddity was that the juvenile was forty-two years old.”

Meehan grinned. The limo, he noticed, was just passing Atomic Lanes. He said, “She dealt with it pretty good, then.”

“I'm sure she's worked in the system a long while,” Goldfarb said. “You may be the oddest oddity she's ever come across, but you're not the
only
oddity she's ever been expected to blink at.”

Meehan nodded, thinking about that. “Life in the square world,” he said, “is more complicated than I thought.”

The restaurant was out on Long Island, on the north shore, a spread-out pale room with large north-facing windows that offered a hilltop view of Long Island Sound, with the southern coast of Connecticut far away. The middle of October, and a little too cool for it, but the powerboats still bobbed and batted around out there, undistracted by any serious shipping.

Jeffords was there first and had not only snagged a window-side table but had grabbed for himself the best seat for looking out at the view. He stood from it to greet them, shook Goldfarb's hand, hesitated, then pretended he hadn't hesitated as he enthusiastically shook Meehan's hand, saying, “So you're a free man.”

“With a leash,” Meehan said. “Goldfarb tells me I have a leash.”

“Oh, I wouldn't worry about it,” Jeffords said. “Sit down, sit down.”

Meehan gave Goldfarb the second-best seat and took for himself the chair at right angles to the view. He could have a conversation, or he could look out at the water, as it winked sunlight here and there off its little wavelets.

Jeffords and Goldfarb wanted to have their own conversation, about the law and what had been done and how it had worked out, so Meehan watched the boats and the waves until after they'd ordered various kinds of seafood and one kind of white wine. Then Jeffords turned to him and said, “That leash is gonna come off you by Thursday, I know it is, so there's nothing to worry about.”

“Tomorrow,” Meehan said. “Expect a phone call.”

“No details!” Goldfarb said.

“That's wonderful,” Jeffords told him. “I knew, Francis, the minute I saw you in the MCC, I knew you were our man.”

“I haven't heard from Yehudi and Mostafa any more,” Meehan said, “but I do keep wondering about them. I don't want them to suddenly show up, making heavy noises while I'm trying to work.”

“Something else not to worry about,” Jeffords assured him. “That's the other thing I wanted to tell you. That has been totally resolved, forever.”

“Good,” Meehan said.

“The president himself got involved,” Jeffords said. “We didn't want him to have to, and
he
certainly didn't want to have to, but our friend Arthur, when he talked to those foreign intelligence people, he opened a real Pandora's box.”

“I'm sure he did,” Meehan said.

“So that's why the president himself had to intervene.”

Meehan said, “With Israel and Egypt?”

“No no no, with Arthur. The president can't acknowledge any of this to our allies.”

Meehan wasn't so sure of this. He said, “But you think he's got Arthur to shut Pandora down again.”

“Absolutely.” Jeffords paused to taste and approve the wine, then said, “The president gave Arthur the ultimate threat, from his own lips.”

Meehan thought, Wow. From a president, that might be scary. He said, “The ultimate threat?”

“That's right.” Jeffords leaned forward, and lowered his voice. “The president told Arthur, one more appearance by those people, of any kind, and Arthur is delisted from the White House inaugural ball.”

Meehan looked at him. Jeffords lifted his glass, beaming at them both. “To crime,” the smug jerk said.

35

O
NE THOUGHT LEADS
to another, or there's an association of ideas, or this leads to that. Whatever; in the limo, headed back toward Manhattan, Meehan found himself thinking about the limo they were going to need tomorrow. Obviously they'd have to boost one, but from where? By the time it got to Burn-stone it would have to carry Massachusetts plates, but that could happen anywhere along the line. The main point was, where to pick up a limo. It's not like an ordinary car, you don't often see one parked by itself just somewhere along the curb.

He thought, should I ask the driver where this one's stored? What reason would I have? Nothing good, and everybody would know it.

Goldfarb broke into his reflections, then, saying, “In a funny way, I'm gonna miss you, Meehan.”

He looked at her, not getting it. “What?”

She gazed out her window at the borough going by. “Though I suppose, really,” she told the view, “what I'll miss is not going to the MCC.”

He said, “Goldfarb? What are you talking about?”

Now she did look at him, seeming a bit surprised. “
You're
out of the MCC, Meehan,” she said, “but
I'm
not. I'm serving a life sentence in that place.”

“Oh,” he said, “you're talking about the MCC.”

“What else did you think I was talking about? I still have to make a living.”

“I thought you were talking about us,” he said.

She lowered her head, the better to eyeball him through her big glasses. “What us?”

So he thought about it, looking first at the back of the chauffeur's head, way up there, and then at his own knees, and finally at the face of Goldfarb, which gave him nothing back. “You are talking about us,” he said. “You're saying goodbye.”

“I'm your lawyer, Meehan,” she pointed out. “The case is over. We went before the judge, and you're a free man.”

“In your custody.”

“That's a technicality,” she said.

“In my experience,” he told her, “it's the technicalities that clothesline you.”

She frowned at him. “Do what?”

“Clothesline,” he repeated. “It's from football, if you're running and a guy sticks his arm out straight to the side so your neck runs into his arm, that's clothesline. You don't see it coming, and it can do damage. In football, it's illegal.”

“Why do they call it clothesline?”

“I dunno.”

She sat back, and he could see she was thinking on it. She said, “If you don't use a clothes dryer, you hang your stuff out on the line.”

“Not in the city.”

“No,” she agreed. “Upstate. But let's say you were upstate, and you were committing a burglary.”

“I'm rehabilitated,” he said.

“Almost,” she told him. “And let's say the homeowner came home, and chased you.”

Similar things had indeed occurred. “Uh-huh,” Meehan said.

“So you're running down the backyards,” she went on, “looking over your shoulder to see if he's catching up, and you don't see that clothesline in front of you.”

“Ow,” he said, putting a protective hand to his throat. “That could take your head off.”

“I bet that's where it comes from,” she said. “Clothesline.”

“Yeah, maybe so,” he said, caressing his throat.

She nodded. “I love phrases from before technology,” she said. “That we still use.”

“Uh-huh,” he said. “Listen, I don't want to say goodbye.”

She looked at him. “Why not?”

“I dunno,” he said. “I got used to talking with you. Clothesline and all that. You know, I think when I saw you that time in your apartment with the gun in your hand, stalking those guys, I decided I liked you. You're kinda goofy and fun.”

“Thanks a lot,” she said.

“But if you don't see any point in being around
me
any more,” he said, “then obviously forget it.”

“I was brought in as your lawyer,” she reminded him.

“By me.”

“And I'm grateful. It's been fun.”

“But now it's over,” he said.

“You don't need a lawyer any more. I
hope
you don't need a lawyer any more.”

“I get it,” he said.

He looked at the chauffeur and tried to think about needing a limo tomorrow. After a few minutes, he actually was thinking about needing that limo tomorrow, and thinking the thing to do might be go up to Massachusetts tonight with Bernie, find a limo company in the yellow pages, see what was what.

“Meehan,” she said.

He looked at her. “Yeah?”

Her face was wrinkled into a very complicated frown. “Were you hitting on me?”

“What? You can't hit on your lawyer, that isn't one—That isn't done.” He'd almost said something about the ten thousand rules, which would have been a very stupid thing to do.

“I'm not your lawyer any more,” she pointed out. “Not since we came out of Judge Foote's chambers.”

“Oh, yeah?” He gave her a happy grin. “Then I
can
hit on you!”

She sat there watching him, not saying anything, until he became uncertain. “Goldfarb,” he said, “you've got me insecure.”

“I have?”

“I'm not usually insecure,” he told her.

“I've noticed that,” she said.

He nodded, thinking it over, then said, “I tell you what. Let's swing around my hotel first, let me pick up a couple things, then I'll come up to your place with you, I mean, your place is also your office—”

“It is.”

“—and we can discuss it,” he said. “Clear the air.”

“That's a good idea,” she said. “I think we ought to clear the air.”

“Good.”

“I don't want you insecure,” she said.

Damn if the red light on the phone wasn't blinking
again!
He almost didn't answer it, having other things on his mind, but then he did, and it was Jeffords, and he sounded awful. Whispering, gulping, hurried, terrified: “Francis, for God's sake, call me! Call me as soon as you can!”

So he did, and Jeffords answered on the first ring, sounding even worse:
“What?”
A ragged but loud shrill whisper, right next to the phone.

“I can hear you,” Meehan said. “Take it easy.”

“Francis! Thank God! Come get me, Francis! Come get me out of here!”

“Get you out of where? What happened to you?”

“They kidnapped me! Quick, come get me!”

Then Meehan got it: “What, Yehudi and Mostafa?”

“I don't
know
who they are, I only want—”

“So much for your president and his ultimate threat.”

“
Don't
lord it over me now, Francis, I'm in desperate trouble! They're going to cut my fingers off!”