The Fall-Down Artist (27 page)

Dorsey stepped out onto the asphalt, and although the gunman was a few steps behind, he could feel the gun on him as surely as he felt the cold wind cutting across his face. There'll be no running, he assured himself. This has to be played out; make a move only if it looks like the worst is going to happen. Like begging on your knees.

The driver opened a steel security door and ushered Dorsey inside and up a flight of steps, the gunman trailing behind. Dorsey jumped at the sound of the steel door slamming shut and the smell of rotting wood and corroding plaster assaulted his nose. Dorsey remembered the smell from a thousand suspect roundups in milltown slums where the heat source was a cheap open-flame gas burner.

At the top of the steps was a second steel door, and the gunman reached past Dorsey to unlock it. The lock snapped crisply and the gunman forced Dorsey forward. “Watch your feet,” the gunman said. “Gotta step up.”

Dorsey found himself in a small windowless office with a third steel door at the far wall. Paneled in imitation wood, the room held well-polished desk of dark wood, matching swivel chair, and two cushioned visitor's chairs facing the desk. Diplomas hung on the wall behind the desk, but before Dorsey could read the name of the diplomate, the gunman pushed him into the first of the visitor's chairs. The gunman rested on the edge of the desk, squarely in front of Dorsey, blocking his view of the diplomas. Dorsey wondered if it was intentional and came to the conclusion that everything this man did was intentional.

“What's it gonna be?” Dorsey asked, hoping to discern his fate. “The priest, he comes in and gives me the Last Rites, then you take it from there? That's how it's starting to look. From my seat, anyway.”

The gunman shook his head and partially suppressed a smile, sending tremors up Dorsey's spine. My God, he thought, maybe you're right. This guy can pull it off. Complete detachment when he needs it, like with Russie. For Russie to get it was okay, this guy could stand for that. Two feet away and he could let it pass, because he was paid to keep an eye only on you.

Dorsey heard the door behind him open, and the gunman rose from the desk and trained the automatic on Dorsey's chest. Gripping the chair arms, white-knuckled, Dorsey watched as a tall, stocky black man, immaculately dressed in a suit the color of charcoal ash, rounded the desk. The ends of his jacket sleeves showed French cuffs with gold cuff links. He tugged at the tops of his pant legs when he prepared to sit. Dorsey figured him to have gained fifteen pounds since the photo was taken, and the gray had spread beyond his temples. The diplomas, now plainly in sight, confirmed it: he was sitting in the office of Louis Preach.

“Please, you should relax.” Preach smiled. “It's been a tough day for you so far. Said good-bye to a friend and now this. I regret it, I really do, but it was necessary. I gave you plenty of invitations, over the phone and in the mail.” Preach smiled again. “But you never called. I felt rejected.”

“You've got my attention now,” Dorsey said. “Using the priest like that, how could you fail?”

Preach's face took on a puzzled look, the lines of his forehead deepening, and he turned to the gunman, now positioned at the side wall. Pushing himself away from the paneling, the gunman came to the desk and crouched down to speak in Preach's ear. Dorsey watched Preach as he listened, wondering if the gunman was passing along last-minute instructions. And if he is, Dorsey was sure, the instructions were the joint product of Jancek and Personal Injury.

“Sure about this, Dexter?” Preach said as the gunman retreated to the wall. “The priest was there? And Dorsey, he thinks he's here to see him?” Preach turned to Dorsey,
a grin working its way across his face. And then, studying Dorsey, he threw back his head and laughed so loudly it bounced off the office walls.

“Oh, Jesus, you think Father Jancek brought you here?” Preach asked.

“Yeah, I think the priest brought me here. Cut the bullshit.” Dorsey found some of his fear turning to anger at being the obvious butt of a joke between Preach and Dexter, who was shaking with laughter too. “You enjoy your work, that's nice. But don't jack me around, okay?”

“Dorsey,” Preach managed to say between laughs, “I didn't bring you here to see Father Jancek. You're here so I can show you how to nail him.”

Preach wiped his face with a monogrammed handkerchief and started to send the gunman into the adjacent office for a bottle he said was in the secretary's desk. “Dex, hold on a minute,” Preach said. “Mr. Dorsey's a beer drinker. Hustle across to the Circle for a six-pack.”

Dorsey watched Dexter slip out of the room, quietly closing the door behind him. “Beer, huh? You know a little bit about me.”

“Secondhand knowledge is all it is. Like I said, you wouldn't return my calls.” Preach rose for a moment to shove the handkerchief into his rear pocket, then settled back into his chair. “After Dexter gets back, I'm going to send him out again. You don't carry any armor, and if you take off—well, these streets are top-heavy with what journalists used to call angry young black men, the dispossessed. You're much better off here. We'll talk; then you'll be taken home. By the way, if you want, there's a bathroom just out the door and to the left.”

Cautious and weary, Dorsey rose and crossed the room, watching Preach over his shoulder. The next room was a reception area furnished with a secretary's desk and two worn sofas. Like the inner office, it was without windows, and the door facing Centre Avenue was the same steel make as the other. Dorsey found the bathroom and concluded it
was a closet with plumbing as he wedged himself between toilet and sink. Leaning over the bowl, he took a long and furious fear piss, his anxiety lessening. Next he filled the sink with cold water and dunked his face, killing the heat in his facial nerves. He wiped his face with a paper towel and returned to the inner office.

“Security doors and no windows.” Dorsey settled into his chair. “You'll scare away business, along with keeping the burglars out.”

“Too often,” Preach said, “they're one and the same.”

The outer steel door slammed and Dexter entered the office dangling a six-pack of Budweiser from its plastic ring. Preach motioned for him to give two cans to Dorsey. “He'll drink fast. He's had a shock.”

Dorsey took a can in each hand and popped the snap-tops with his thumbs. “That's right, a trying day it has been.” He took a long pull from the can in his left hand. The beer hit his stomach fast and cold, soothing the tremors in his knees.

Dexter placed the remaining cans on the corner of the desk and left. Preach moved them onto the blotter and used his elbow to wipe at the wet ring left on the wood. “Now that you're more composed, let's talk about Father Jancek. You're getting closer, I know you are. But I also know, as sure as my face is black, you haven't got him yet.”

“And what is it I'm supposed to be getting him for?”

“Of course,” Preach said. “You don't trust me. And why should you? You think I've thrown in with the priest.”

“The two of you, you look really good together.” Dorsey took another long pull on his beer and wiped his face on his sleeve. “Together, you two are downright photogenic.”

Preach leaned back into his chair and spread his arms. “A photo opportunity is what it's called. “Pictures were taken, that's right. But there's a few years on them now, and times change. Father Jancek and myself—our little fallout was, I think, two years ago.”

Calmed by the beer, Dorsey began pulling his thoughts
together, hoping to initiate instead of reacting. Talk to me, he thought. He'll say the words, Dorsey told himself, and you'll shove them through the strainer to glean the truth from the bullshit, if any. “What's the matter?” Dorsey said. “Won't Father Jancek let you join him in praying at the steel-mill gates? You may have missed another photo opportunity. While they load you into the sheriff's wire-window bus.”

“Oh, my delegation and myself, we were there at the beginning.” Preach flashed the grin again, but this time it was much shrewder, and Dorsey watched for a knuckle ball. “But a year or two ago Father Jancek began seeing things in a different light. A different shade, perhaps.” Preach pointed at Dorsey. “Think about it, just take a minute. You've been to one of the rallies, and you can't tell me you haven't seen the television. How many black faces have you seen? One, maybe two, if the good father is in an expansive mood on that particular day. Movements are coalitions. And, as is customary, to attract one specific group you may have to drop another. In the case of Movement Together, the dropped group is black. Disenfranchised, that's what we are.”

Dorsey finished the beer and reached to place the empty on the blotter. There had been a few blacks in the union hall in Midland, he remembered, but they were fly shit in the sugarbowl. And the media-search photos in the manila folder. The earlier ones were pretty dark, but the tone lightened as the years rolled by. The demagogue develops.

“If you're on the outs with the priest, like you say, why was he willing to play out his role in church today?”

“Right now,” Preach said, “you'll find this hard to swallow, but he wasn't there by my design. Pure coincidence. Dexter was told to get you here today, that's all. As I say, you may not believe that. But let me set my cards out on the table by telling a story.”

Dorsey finished the second beer and took another from the desk, jerking the can away from the plastic ring. He nodded for Preach to begin.

“I've known Father Jancek for some time now,” Preach said. “Since he came to Saint Agnes. Me, I'm not Catholic, guess you could say I'm a part-time Baptist, but we met through the community action groups. When he was at the head of the hunger and housing marches, I was one rank behind. I saw him wrap himself around politicians, and believe me, I loved the things he could accomplish. He never changed the city's social structure, but here and there, and maybe just temporarily, things got a little better. Job programs, help for the elderly and shut-ins, assistance to single mothers. Reagan's doing his best to undo it all, but it was better.”

Dorsey nodded. “So you knew him way back when.”

“And maybe not so way back,” Preach said. “Like I said, it's only been the last two years that he and I have been on the outs. Me and my people were in on the ground floor when the Movement was formed, when the economy nose-dived. We were pretty well organized around here, and to be honest, a lot of it was Father Jancek's doing. We were his first power base. But the Movement, it had to grow. New groups had to be attracted, enticed—union locals up and down the river valleys. And those guys like white faces best.”

To Dorsey, it had the ring of truth. More than possible, he thought; damned likely. It's skin against skin in those towns, not class economics. And nobody there wants to do well if doing well leaves you with a nigger next door.

“It was a union local up in Brackenridge that finally did us in,” Preach said. “Oh, sure, we were being nudged out before that. Little by little, white faces replaced the black ones in the committees. But this local up in Brackenridge, Christ, they were fat. Big and rich, with bank accounts that would make you drool. They wanted to be part of Movement Together, and Movement Together wanted them. But this local, the head men didn't want coffee mixing with the cream. And that's when the last black member of the executive committee, me, lost out in a special election.”

“When you lost out?” Dorsey returned Preach's sly
smile. “I thought your efforts were all in the service of your people.”

“Me, my people: one and the same,” Preach said. “My people, they need success stories, role models. So I should be one. But get this straight. We've been disenfranchised and I want that changed.”

And the priest takes a tumble, Dorsey told himself, and Movement Together goes flat. And a new leader emerges. Louis Preach and his well-organized black faction at the center of a new coalition.

“So things get a little crazy for a while,” Preach said, as if reading Dorsey's thoughts. “There'll be a lot of splinter groups looking for a vocal, high-profile leader. I can be very vocal when necessary.”

“And you'll be very powerful,” Dorsey said. “And there's more than one congressional seat up for grabs next year. I hear your local man plans on stepping down.”

“I've never been one to be locked into one goal,” Preach said, “and it's an interesting possibility. But regardless, you have my reasons for wanting to help you; we now understand each other. That's good.”

“So how do I get Jancek?”

“You're going to pay a visit to a man I know,” Preach said. “A man who was in on the planning, a man who sat at the table when it was all put together. It's arranged for you to talk to him tomorrow, late afternoon.”

“And where's this going to take place?”

“Huntingdon State Penitentiary,” Preach said. “He's doing three to five.”