The Disposable Man (16 page)

“Joe,” he said slowly, “I’ve got only one thing to worry about here, which is that trinket in your pocket. I think we might be able to deal with that—maybe even duck it. A jury, for example, might be made to love that theory about someone in the crowd planting the thing on you, regardless of what you think of it. But if the CIA and mugger-hit-men come into it, that’s going to introduce a whole other dimension, and I’ll be honest with you, I’d prefer that didn’t happen.”

He began wandering around the room again, idly touching lampshades and photographs and the leaves of various plants with his fingertips. “And there’s something else. You mentioned Gail. Have you and she discussed all the permutations of this together?”

I stared at him, feeling a sense of dread wash through me.

“She’s a deputy state’s attorney, Joe,” Levay continued. “And you and she are not married. None of what you two talked about is protected, and I seriously doubt Fred Coffin will overlook that. She will be deposed.”

I rubbed my forehead, that odd humming back in my brain. “I think we even touched on that—watching what we said. Maybe I’m making that up. But we went ahead anyhow.”

“Through that deposition, the CIA angle will probably come out, along with your somewhat unfortunate overreaction on Western Avenue. Witnesses to that should have some pretty colorful descriptions.”

I didn’t say a word.

“Did you tell Gail you were going to call Bartlett?” he asked.

“No,” I answered with relief. “That was spontaneous. I only thought of it after Gail and I talked on the phone this afternoon.”

“Good. At least he can’t reach Kathy that way.” He smiled. “Well, don’t worry about it. I can probably stop the CIA from being mentioned in court. And, if not—given the right jury—we’ll just make the CIA look like the KGB. Who knows? This is a business for the nimble-footed. We’ll have to be better at it than he is.”

He crossed the room and opened his briefcase, replacing his pad and pen. “I wouldn’t worry right now in any case. They haven’t even begun the investigation, which could take them a while. I’ll call Fred and let him know I’ve been retained, and then we’ll just wait for the other shoe to drop. Best case scenario: they actually find the anonymous caller, who turns out to be a retired pickpocket.”

He snapped the case shut and headed for the door. “Don’t get too glum early on, keep your mouth shut, and only talk to Gail about the weather and what’s for dinner. Give her my best, by the way, and tell her not to worry.”

He paused before leaving. “About what Bartlett said—playing dirty? You’ll leave that to me, right?”

“You got it, Richard.”

· · ·

Gail came home late that night, her shoulders slumped and her eyes vacant. She entered the kitchen, where I was sitting in front of a stack of six cookies, and barely cast them a glance, much less gave me a lecture.

“You look bushed,” I said, taking her portable computer and briefcase and laying them on the breakfast table. “You had anything to eat? I could pull out a can of soup.”

Without saying a word, she draped her arms around my neck and gave me a long, quiet hug. We stood there, I rubbing her back, for several minutes before she finally broke away, sat in one of the Windsor chairs by the bay window facing the driveway, and kicked off her shoes. “I’m not hungry.”

I settled on a stool nearby and extended a cookie to her, which she took automatically. “I take it this was not a good day.”

She chewed thoughtfully for a few seconds before admitting, “I kept trying to figure out what it felt like. I just spent the day doing what I do, nothing more. Everyone was polite, nobody avoided me—although your name never came up—but I was feeling victimized. I finally figured out it was like standing on a scaffold with a blindfold, with a bunch of people working under the trapdoor, trying to figure out why it wasn’t opening. ‘Let’s make a little small talk while we sort this damn thing out… ’ I felt like I was betraying you by not grabbing them by the collars and telling them this was all such shit.”

I handed her a second cookie. “You can’t do that, Gail. You’ve got to just lock it in a corner of your mind. It’ll drive you nuts otherwise. Sammie thinks it’ll all blow over soon anyway.”

She glanced at the cookie in her hand as if it had appeared from out of the blue and stuffed it into her mouth, ignoring my lame attempt to cheer her up. “I don’t know if I can pull that off,” she said in a muffled voice. “If Fred Coffin’s people put together a case, I’ll be up the creek in two ways. Not only will Derby have to park me where I can only work cases you’ve never come close to, but I’ll be dragged into this anyhow once Coffin asks me if you and I have discussed what happened to you.”

I pursed my lips and nodded. “Yeah. Richard Levay was here this afternoon. Told me the same thing. I am sorry. I should’ve kept my mouth shut.”

This time, she half rose out of her chair and stole three cookies off my stack. “I’m the goddamn lawyer, for Christ’s sake.” She took a bite. “Sure wasn’t thinking like one then. What did he say?”

I hesitated. She glanced at me, winced, and very gently thumped her forehead with the heel of her free hand. “Okay, okay. Never mind. Christ—what a day. I should’ve stuck to selling houses.”

I leaned over and kissed her cheek. “Bullshit.”

· · ·

By late morning the following day, I’d gone to pacing through the house like a frustrated ghost, searching for something to do, too restless to finish it once I’d begun. Books were left open next to three different chairs, two TVs were muttering to themselves in empty rooms, tools had been spread out before several untouched repair jobs, and the car had been hosed but not soaped. By the time the phone finally rang, I damn near pulled it out of the wall.

“
What
?”

“Little antsy?” Sammie asked.

“What do you think? Hold it… We shouldn’t be talking.”

She laughed. “Man. You’re a basket case. We won’t be talking. I’ll talk and you listen. Not that it matters. This is just an update anyhow. Fred Coffin’s boys came down yesterday afternoon—Danny Freer and Bill Nathan. They haven’t done much yet. Mostly poke through our notes and learn the cast of characters. They did talk to the owner—Alonzo. Remember Mickey Mitchell, a juvie shoplifter about ten years ago?”

I closed my eyes, trying to pull out that name. “No.”

“He left town long since. Not a bad kid—a little screwed up. He stole a small item from Alonzo’s shop back then. You ran the case, returned the item, had Mickey apologize, and got Alonzo to drop the charges. I was hoping that would mean something to you.”

“I wish it did. I’ve done that kind of thing a lot. We all have.”

She sounded disappointed. “Yeah. Well, anyhow, they were digging into it, for some reason. They’re real tight-lipped. Not a fun-lovin’ couple.”

“I know Freer,” I said distractedly. “He always seemed decent enough. How’s the squad doing?”

“A little worse than before. Willy’s p.o.’d he’s been dragged into it. Tyler’s keeping it to himself, and Ron’s looking like his dog was run over. The rest of them are walking on eggs. The chief’s become a total pain in the butt—prickly as hell. Things’ve gotten real spit-and-polish around here. CYA’s the standing order. Everybody’s waiting for you to get a clean bill of health, but they can’t understand the delay.”

She’d delivered all this in hyperdrive, making it sound like some demented rap song. I didn’t bother asking how she was holding up. “Any movement on the Boris case?” I asked instead.

There was a brief silence at the other end. “No. Not really,” she finally said. “Kind of slipped off the front burner.”

“Slip it back on,” I told her. “You’re in charge now. Is that a problem?”

“Hell, no. Might get our brains going again. How d’you want to work it?”

“Officially? Not at all—remember that. But if I were in your shoes, I’d be very curious about John Rarig. I was supposed to put his background under a microscope while you and Willy got to Marty Sopper through Marianne Baker. Maybe Ron can act for me—he’s a natural. Tell him to get as many live accounts of Rarig’s past as he can—not to trust the paper trail.”

“I’ll handle Marianne alone,” she said, her enthusiasm plain. “I don’t see Willy loosening her up one bit—too much like Sopper himself. He could work at it from the other end, though. Chat it up with Sopper’s scuzzy friends. He’d be good with them.”

“Fine,” I encouraged her. “How ’bout the rest of your workload? If Tony’s on the warpath, he’s going to come checking. And you’re one man short now.”

“Don’t remind me. I think we’re all right for the moment. I heard several people in the Officers’ Room writing the Boris thing off as a mob dumping, though. More talk like that, and Tony’ll tell us to shut down the investigation.”

I knew she was right. “Well, do what you can as fast as you can. It’s the best we can hope for.”

We hung up, she presumably feeling better, and I definitely deeper in the dumps. The more I stalked around the house, as if circling my problem in search of the slightest hope, the more convinced I became that my only salvation lay in keeping the Boris investigation alive. The fact that I had no say in that decision, however, made me feel like a drowning man within sight of a passing boat. It was a galling, belittling sensation, which threatened the calm I knew I had to maintain.

The phone rang again. This time it was Ted MacDonald, the news director of the town’s radio station, WBRT. A lifelong resident, unlike Stanley Katz, and a far kinder man, Ted used an approach that was appropriately less self-serving than Katz’s had been.

“Joe,” he began, “I didn’t want to crowd you when I first heard about this. How’re you holding up?”

“In what context are you asking?”

He didn’t take offense. “As a friend, off the record.”

This was one of Ted’s true talents and explained why he was the best reporter in town. He bided his time, made the effort to nurture his sources, and often waited until they came to him. He could only afford to do this, of course, because by now he had tabs on half the town’s residents. Still, it was a pleasant contrast to the Katzes of the world and made me less inclined to hang up the phone on him.

“I’m waiting for the other shoe to drop,” I said.

“Doesn’t sound like Fred Coffin shares your sense of fair play. He’s gone after you pretty hard in a press release we just got.”

“Well, it’s his investigation.”

“Meaning there’s something to find?” MacDonald sounded surprised.

“Meaning he’ll come up with it if it’s there or not. He’s climbing the ladder, Ted. People like that see everything as an advantage. If he finds me dirty, then he’s exposed a bad cop. He finds me clean, then he’s a saint who shows no favorites. The man’s in hog heaven.”

“What are you doing about it?”

“Still off the record?”

“Yeah.”

He’d never been known to break his word, but Richard Levay’s caution came back to mind. “I’m waiting to see what the charges are.”

Ted’s silence spoke of his disappointment.

“It’s not like I’m used to this role,” I explained. “I’ve always talked to you and Stan from the other side of the fence. I’m sorry.”

I hung up the phone, feeling even worse than before. There were no conversations left that weren’t shadowed by the cloud hanging over me. Regardless of the topic, it seemed, the sticking point remained the same—was I lying or not?

And I hadn’t even been formally charged yet.

· · ·

Gail looked no better that night, coming home late as usual. This time, however, I noticed a skittishness that had been missing before. The sense of relief upon entering our home was absent. She didn’t take off her shoes at the door, or use me as a sounding board for the day’s frustrations. Instead of loitering in the kitchen where we spent much of our time together, she greeted me and continued upstairs, her coat still on, complaining of a headache and saying she was going to take a bath.

I left her on her own, listening from the darkened living room as she moved about upstairs. Later, after she’d been soaking for about ten minutes, I quietly went to join her, conscious of the house’s somber quiet. She’d lit only one light in the bedroom, and when I opened the bathroom door to the misty sweetness of soapy hot water, I found only a candle lit.

“What?” she asked, a streak of pallor in the dark tub at the far end of the room. “Just checking to see how you were.”

“I want to be alone.”

I closed the door and retreated to a rocking chair in the corner of the bedroom. I’d half expected the rejection—perhaps I’d even sought it out, to prove it was there, waiting to happen.

But with it, I felt an acute loneliness, which I now had to admit I’d also been anticipating. There comes a time in life, I’d discovered years ago, when emotional surprises all but peter out. It’s not that they stop happening, but when they do, they carry the dull resonance of familiarity. Now that the wedge between me and my life had reached the two of us, I saw that its progress had been as swift, sure, and predictable as when the Titanic had borne down on that iceberg.

I sat in that chair, as I was sure Gail was lying in the tub, awaiting the inevitable.

She came out eventually, silent and brittle, wrapped in a robe she held gathered at the throat. I wasn’t surprised when she slipped under the covers still encased in the robe.

“I take it today makes yesterday look good,” I said.

“Yeah.”

“You want to talk about it?”

“Not really.”

She was staring at the twin peaks her feet made under the bedspread, her face tight and her brow furrowed. I said nothing more, but made no move to leave her in peace. Finally, she yielded. “Remember what I said about wondering when they’d fix the scaffold? Well, they have. Derby didn’t just strip me of all the cases you might’ve been involved in. He’s dumped me back into Juvenile, where I started. And I got the feeling that if any big cases come up there, someone else will handle those, too.”

“Seems a little harsh,” I commented.

Her face turned bitter. “He said it was for my own protection. The media and the public aren’t allowed in family court, so I’ll be able to keep functioning with only minimal distractions. What crap. The only thing he’s protecting is his own butt. He figures if he can bury me from the start, he won’t have to catch any more flak.”