Resolved (18 page)

Hrcany grinned, not pleasantly. “Well, you know, Butch, I've always been tight with the cops. When Hank went down, O'Bannion called from the detectives' endowment and asked me if I'd come in as a closer, and I said I would.”

“A closer, huh? He can only throw twenty pitches, but nobody can hit them. Ninth inning, three on, no out, he retires the side.”

“Right. A kind of legal Mariano Rivera.”

“That what they told you, Roland? The detectives? Just waltz in there, put our boys up on the stand, let them tell their sad story, and boom, acquittal. The seats in the jury box won't even cool off.”

“Something like that,” said Hrcany. “I was surprised to find you were on the case. I thought that was Jack's big no-no.”

“I was confused about that, too,” said Karp. “He doesn't seem the same old Jack, playing the political angles and all that. A minor stroke in the paranoia lobe is what I'm thinking. I can't make up my mind whether he's hoping against hope that I'll pull it out of the fire, or that he knows it's lost and I'm his choice for going down with the ship.”

“The latter. Definitely.”

“We'll see. Now tell me the truth, Roland. Did you know I was up for the People when you took this case? I mean, is this yet
another
chapter in your—what is it now?—your twenty-two-year effort to see which of us has the bigger pecker?”

Hrcany laughed briefly. “Don't flatter yourself. I happen to think that it's a shame when a pair of detectives who don't have a single mark against them as far as bigotry is concerned get second-guessed on a shooting behind an infamous outdoor drug market. Second-degree murder, my ass! Fucking immigrants come to this country, first time they ever saw indoor crappers and civil liberties, they think it's a free ride, they can do all the shit they want and they're invulnerable. Then some cop does his duty and if it happens the guy is of a certain race, you PC assholes drop the courthouse on him. I think it sucks. That's why I took the case.”

“You were an immigrant, Roland. You told the story a million times, how you and your dad came here after the Hungarian revolution with only a couple of suitcases and—”

“That was completely different.”

“Why? Because you were white?”

“Oh, fuck you!”

“You know, Roland, I think that your single flaw as a lawyer is that when you tell a serious fib, your earlobes get a little red. It's more obvious since you cut your hair. You've been dying to grind me to powder on a courtroom floor for years and now's your big chance.”

Hrcany glared for a moment and then chuckled. He clapped Karp on the shoulder. What an absolutely peculiar relationship I have with this man, thought Karp.

“Now that you bring it up, I think I
will
enjoy it.”

“Unless you lose,” said Karp. “See you in court, counsellor.”

L
UCY AWOKE IN
D
AN
H
EENEY'S BED WITH A DENSE, LIVING
headache and the usual dry, crusty tongue that follows an evening of debauch. She was an infrequent debaucher, but a somewhat more frequent one than she might have chosen to be, for she dreaded more than almost anything developing a rep as a prig.
More
of a rep, actually. She was a college student; college students got plastered; ergo, she got plastered. Unfortunately for the happy operation of this syllogism, Lucy had inherited her mother's vast capacity. She could drink copiously while remaining at least somewhat functional, and thus absorb enough poison to generate ferocious hangovers, as now.

She slid out of bed, taking care to keep her head level, found her knapsack, extracted a toothbrush and two Advils, and clomped painfully to the bathroom. She observed that she was dressed in underpants and a T-shirt. The presence of the panties was a good sign, because she could not remember getting into bed, or what (if anything) had transpired in it. Nothing much, it seemed, as usual. She washed her face, popped in the Advils, and sucked a pint of water from her cupped hands. The water stung the knuckles of her right hand, which she now saw were split and swollen. Uh-oh. She brushed her teeth and stared balefully at her image in the smeared bachelors' mirror. Yet again God had failed to answer her prayer, for she did not look any more like Cameron Diaz than she had yesterday.

She sniffed. Someone was making coffee. She went back to Dan's bedroom and donned shorts and sneakers. The somewhat of a boyfriend was sitting at the kitchen counter reading the
Globe
.

“Hello, slugger,” he said.

“Coffee.”

“Help yourself. How do you feel?”

She ignored this until she had poured a mug, added enough milk to make it lukewarm, and drank half of it down. Then she said, “I'll survive. I guess I got pretty loaded last night.”

“You were fine until you started on the margaritas. How much do you remember?”

“I remember going to Blue City. I remember meeting Mary and a posse of geeks. We listened to music and then we went to Christie's and danced, and then…a party?”

“Yeah, we ran into Penny Hogarth and she invited us to her place to drink margaritas. How's your hand?”

“It hurts. Car door?” Hoping against hope.

“Car door not. You coldcocked Paul Maslow.”

“I don't know any Paul Maslows.”

“You made his acquaintance last night, for sure. You really don't remember?”

“No. I think I remember drinking margos out of a pitcher. Why did I hit him?”

“Oh, he's a famous asshole. Harvard grad student, very post-modern. He thinks it's cool to insult people. It was a pretty interesting party, mostly grad students, people there from every nation, as they say, all of them drunk out of their gourds. Anyway, Maslow got into a rant about the Catholics and what a bunch of morons they were, anyone who believes that malarkey was supporting pedophilia and misogyny, and that the whole thing was a racket so that a bunch of guys could live off the fat of the land and fuck little boys to their hearts' content. As I recall, you got in his face about it, and he said something nasty to you that I didn't catch, and then you started to curse him out in a bunch of languages. It was pretty damn funny, if you want to know: you'd say one thing and all the Chinese guys would crack up, and something else and all the Koreans would go bat shit. The Pakistanis, whatever. And he was getting all redded out because they were laughing at him and he didn't know why and he said, ‘Oh, shut the fuck up you stupid cunt,' and sort of pushed you, and that's when you slugged him.”

“What did I hit him with?”

“Fists. Darlin', you were a blur is all I can tell you. You must've hit him about six times in two seconds. Where'd you learn to punch like that?”

“It's a family tradition. My grandfather was a pug back in the forties. He taught my mom and she taught me, instead of how to frost a cake.”

“Anyhow, one second you were standing there yelling at each other and the next he was on his ass with blood pouring off his face. I think you broke his nose. You never saw so many snotty East Coast intellectuals sober up so fast. The cops got mentioned and I dragged you out of there. You were raving in some language, Latin it sounded like.”

Yes, now it was starting to come back. She felt the heat roll up her face. “Oh, God, I'm sorry! Have I ruined you socially?”

“I doubt it. It's probably the first fistfight over religion in Cambridge since ole Willy James was teaching down at the med school. People will be telling stories about it for years. Including Maslow, probably, only he'll make you a six-four abortion clinic bomber he defeated in single combat.”

“But you're not mad at me?”

In answer, he rose, knelt by her chair, and embraced her. She fell against him and groaned. “Jesus! Beating up on people about religion! Good Lord, I should know by now, anti-Catholicism is the anti-Semitism of the smart. In this neighborhood people don't even hesitate before dissing the poor old Church. Okay, the guy was an obnoxious turd, but still…resorting to blows? Where did
that
come from?” Knowing full well.

He said, “Oh, hell, darlin', don't fret you none: back home a man who took off like that on someone's religion'd be lucky to get off with a busted nose.”

She smiled. “Corn pone.”

“Sister, we'ns from
West
Virginia. Corn pone's considerable south of where I hail from.”

“It makes me all shivery when you talk like that:
war ah hay-ul fum.”

“And why would that be?”

“I'm an extreme exogam. Like the mom. I always figured it would be an Asian, but you came along instead, with your sly, cosmological hillbilly ways.” She tugged a golden lock; he moved with the pull.

“But,” she said, when they were breathing again, “that's it for the booze. I'm on the wagon for a good long while, which means I will be an even less fun piece of dry toast than I was before. I'll understand if you want to kick me the hell out.”

“Oh, yeah, with my dad and my brother both drunks. Seriously, though: you think that's a problem for you?”

“Extreme violence under the influence? You saw it. I'd classify that as a problem. Sometimes it even happens when I'm cold sober. It scares the bejezus out of me.”

“Because of your mother, right?” He was the only other person in the Greater Boston metro region who knew the full story of what had happened in West Virginia.

“Right,” said Lucy, and sighed. “Because of her.”

 

She started with a call that evening, after the delicious veal marsala and the wine, and the rum cake and tortoni, served by candlelight, with poor Karp carefully grateful and the boys on their best behavior, unnaturally so, and the two of them going to bed like the little angels they were not. She was pretending to be the perfect mom and they the perfect mom's family. She found she didn't mind: she'd always thought that honesty and letting it all hang out and confrontation were absurdly overrated. If a little pretense and good manners got you through the day, well then, Marlene Ciampi would not say it nay.

Besides which it gave her a scrap of an excuse for getting into a little something here with Paul Agnelli. He hadn't called by nine, so she called him at his mother's, where he'd been holed up since the collapse of his marriage.

“Hi, this is Marlene Ciampi, calling for Paul Agnelli?”

“Marlene? From the neighborhood?” Mrs. Agnelli's voice was cigarette husky and uncertain.

“Yes, that one. How are you, Mrs. Agnelli?”

“Oh, well, you know, the usual. We haven't seen you in a while. You been out of town?”

“Yes. Look, Mrs. A, did Joe Cotta tell you I was by today?”

“Joe? No, he didn't. You were by? We must've been out.”

“Right. Did he give you my card?”

“Card? No, what card?”

“Well, it doesn't matter. Is Paul in, by any chance?”

“Yeah, he's right here.” A muffling of the receiver through which Marlene could hear the maternal shout. She waited. Marlene had known Paul Agnelli since early childhood. Her grandmother had lived above the shops on Mulberry a few doors down from the butcher's, and Marlene and her brothers and sisters had been frequent visitors. Paul and she had chased each other with chicken feet in and out of the remains of Little Italy from the age of seven. Somewhat later, there had been a little discreet smooching in the meat cooler, among the hanging joints, nothing serious, and then she had soared into Sacred Heart and Smith, and he had stayed in the butcher shop and married Karen Boone, a blondie not from the neighborhood, and he and Marlene had smoothly transitioned into a relationship limited to wise-ass remarks across the gleaming counters.

“Hey, Marlene! What's up? Nothing wrong with the meat, I hope.”

“No, the meat was great, like always. Look, Paul, I was talking to Joe today and he told me a little about the fix you're in, and I thought I'd call, see if I could help out.”

Silence for a moment here. “Well, I'm sorry he bothered you with that, Marlene. I got to talk to the guy about spreading my business around to everyone.”

“Oh, for crying out loud, Paulie! I'm not
everyone
. I'm practically your oldest pal, even if I didn't let you squeeze my tits in the cooler. Or only from the outside. In fact, I'm kind of insulted you didn't come to me in the first place. I mean, let's face it, Nick Biaggi is for when you got a problem with your lease, not when you're looking at jail time. So, what's the story?”

Bitter chuckle. “You got a week?” Lowering his voice. “I really can't talk to you on the phone here. Ma's around the corner with her ears, they're like those radio dishes—they probe the galaxies. Can we like, sit down somewheres?”

“How about Russo's? Ten minutes.”

“You mean tonight? Right now?”

“Yeah. Unless you got a previous engagement.”

 

“I'm going out,” she said to her husband. “A client.”

He looked up from the TV. “Doggie business?”

“No, legal. Paul Agnelli the butcher's in a jam. You guys've got him up on a statutory rape charge.”

“Paul the butcher, huh? He probably did it, then, or the cops wouldn't have collared him. Come to think of it, I always thought the guy had short eyes. The way he handled those chickens…”

“Darling, there is nothing in the least perverse about Paul Agnelli's sexuality, as I know from personal experience. In fact, it's a little
too
normal, if you want to know. This man has broken more hearts south of Houston Street than there are lamp posts. I was actually surprised when he got married.”

“Then she said she was eighteen. You'll cop him to abuse two.”

“Something like that. I'll see you later.” She whistled for the dog.

“Remember, we screw the clients only on the invoice,” he said, happy she was going out on legal business rather than the other kind. “If you're not back by three
A
.
M
., I'm going to start worrying.”

She laughed and left.

Russo's was practically the last working-stiff saloon left below Houston Street, every other joint having being infected with gentry disease. It had a floor made of black-and-white hexagonal tiles, a ceiling made of thickly painted tin, a jukebox with a lot of Perry Como and Connie Francis on it, and a clientele that included a substantial number of elderly men with few teeth and dark clothes. These persons sat at the scarred wooden tables, nursing glasses of inky wine, not talking much, with their hats on and their collars buttoned up to the top collar button. Russo's smelled of cigars and old beer.

Agnelli was waiting for her when she walked in with the dog. Gog whimpered and licked his hand, for he was one of Gog's favorite people. Marlene kissed him on the cheek, smelling a heavy cologne that was not quite up to its fight with the undertone of blood and pork fat. She sat and they looked each other over in the unself-conscious manner of old acquaintances. Paul Agnelli was almost parodically gorgeous, in the classic Italian heartthrob manner. He was dark, thickly haired, sloe-eyed, powerfully built. Tonight he was in cutoff jeans, a red body shirt, and several gold chains. He smiled like a Colgate ad, and told her she was looking good. She returned the compliment, with, she thought, a good deal more truth in it. They ordered a bottle of the house faux Barolo. It came in a labelless green bottle with two squat juice glasses. No stemware at Russo's. Without being asked, the barman brought a bowl of draft for the dog.

“Old friendship,” said Marlene, and they clinked glass on it. “Okay, she said she was eighteen, right?”

“No, no, you're off base there. I never touched this girl. I don't know her from fuckin' Adam. Eve. I swear on my mother's head, Marl. The cops came to the shop, asked me did I know Cherry Newcombe, and I'm like, ‘Who?' They show me a picture, same deal, I thought it was like some kind of clerical error. They wanted Joe Agnelli, Frank Agnelli, whatever. But no. She says I picked her up at the Red Mill on Barrow. You know it? Right, it's a meat market, excuse the expression. Am I known there? Yeah. Do I pick up chicks there? Yeah again. Did I pick that one up? No, ma'am. They say I got her drunk, and did her in the backseat of my car. She's fourteen.”