The Railroad (18 page)

Chapter Ten

It took two days for me to realize that I couldn’t afford to coddle myself. I wasn’t done with the legal system. What was the next step? I wasn’t sure. Over coffee and a Hot Pocket, it hit me.

I called Eileen’s lawyer. She had given me his number and told me to wait a few days and tell him that she’d gone underground. To my surprise I found that I felt sheepish about making the call. It occurred to me that he might look on me as an intruder.

He didn’t disappoint me. Once I got through his secretary his first words were, “Who is this?” He didn’t sound friendly.

“I’ve already told your secretary. I’m a friend of hers.”

“What kind of friend?”

“I don’t think I’m obligated to go into that. She wanted me to call you, so I’m calling you.”

“How do I know I can believe you?”

“What can I say to you? I guess I should hang up.”

“No. Wait!” I heard him shuffling some papers. “You wouldn’t be Mike Dobbs, would you?”

“Whoa! Did she call you and tell you who I am?”

“No. Let’s just say I have some friends on the force.”

“Wonderful. I’m famous.”

“No, you’re just getting attention from the police.”

“So, should I end this call?”

He paused. “I got the impression you helped Eileen and Megan.”

“As best I could.”

“Okay. I want to talk to you, but this probably isn’t the best way. Can you give me your address?”

“You want to come see me?”

“I figure it’s easier. What town do you live in?”

“Bardstown.”

“Excellent. I pass near there on the way home.”

“Okay. To be honest I wanted to talk to you anyway.”

“In my legal capacity?”

“Sort of.”

“Okay. What if I get there around six thirty?”

“That’s fine.” I gave him my address with directions.

“See you then,” he said and hung up.

*

Steven Moskowitz, Esq. wasn’t what I expected. During our phone conversation, I had imagined a short, wiry man with thinning hair. The real Steven was about six foot four with an athletic build. He moved gracefully, like a man comfortable with his physical self. I suspected running and basketball in his background.

“You want a drink?” I asked him, not caring what he thought of me.             

He looked at the bottle I held out to him and smiled. “Laphroaig. Good stuff.”

I went into the kitchen and got two rocks glasses. He seemed like a connoisseur so I poured a couple of fingers. The folks at Laphroaig pride themselves on creating a single malt scotch that not everyone can stand. For some people even the smell is disgusting. It was nice to share it with someone who appreciated it.

Moskowitz, Esq. sniffed it first, then took a good pull. “Can’t afford this very often. I think it’s been over a year since I had it.”

“Have as much as you like. There’s another bottle in the back.”

He nodded as though he’d expected as much. “Did you fall in love with Eileen?” he asked suddenly.

“Yes.” I saw no reason to lie.

“How long did she stay here?”

“About five months.”

“And what happened to make her leave?”

“You obviously value tact. I thought you had the whole story from your cop friends.”

“They can only tell me so much.”

“We went into the City and she ran into some people who weren’t her friends. It seemed like they were her husband’s friends.”

“What happened then?”

“They hassled her. I got angry. I got out of there as soon as I could, but they saw my license plate.”

“Shit.”

“Yeah.”

He sat thinking and sipping. He was a nervous man; his hand kept tapping his knee. “She talked about
The Railroad
a lot, especially when it seemed that her case was going bad. I know that’s where she is now.”

“That’s the way it worked out.”

“That really ties my hands.”

“To be honest, it seemed that your hands were tied before. That’s why she had to run in the first place.”

He smirked. “To some extent that’s true. We got a bad judge. He was an old man who believes in the status quo. You know, women should stay at home, children are all naughty, don’t buck the system, sexual abuse never happens. We had testimony to support Eileen’s case, but he wouldn’t allow some of it and the rest sort of got overwhelmed by the defense’s case. They had some great expert witnesses.”

“The best money can buy?”

“Yes. And you’ve figured out I’m not the best money can buy.”

“I don’t know.”

“You do. You strike me as a yuppie. You know about lawyers. I don’t charge much. I take on hopeless cases. I don’t have the right connections. I don’t dress the part. Eileen’s husband hired the perfect lawyers, just the kind that the judge would like to see his kids become.”

“Okay, so you don’t have much clout. What can we do for her now?”

“Now?” He shook his head sadly. “Do you think that you can pile some money into this and turn it around? This is a new criminal case and she’s the defendant, or she will be, if it ever comes to trial.”

“I was hoping that maybe I could hire the same type of piranha lawyers that her husband hired.”             

“That would have been helpful a few months back. Right now, you’d never get to court because we don’t have anything we can do. She hasn’t gone to trial so no one can defend her or make an appeal. Her husband was already cleared of all criminal charges. Do you think you can sue the judge who presided over her custody case?”

“I’m not that stupid. So there’s nothing we can do now?”

“Probably not.”

“That’s wonderful. Would you be willing to turn your files over to another lawyer who might want to try to save her?”

To my surprise he laughed. Then he raised his glass asking for more scotch. I wanted to hit him with the bottle, but I kept my cool. When I returned from the kitchen with his refilled glass I found him scanning the titles in my bookshelf. “Philosophy, religion and … computers, an interesting combination”.

“I’m an eclectic kind of guy.” I handed him his drink.

“You a programmer?”

“Was. Actually more of an analyst”

“Gave it all up for this?” He gestured sarcastically around the ugly, broken-down, room.

“You’re a very pleasant guy.”

“No I’m not. Sorry. Okay, let’s get back to Eileen’s predicament. You think you can do something.”

“I figure it’s worth trying.”

“I’ll give you my legal opinion for free. You don’t get that from lawyers very often. Even a pro bono type like me. As long as Eileen was in the system, she was, tacitly, in support of it. Even if she was being litigious, it was still part of what’s considered acceptable. You have to understand that our judge thinks he’s a good man and he’s actually contributing to the common weal.

“So let’s consider how he feels if someone implies that he’s actually a hack, which he is, and that he is handling a very delicate matter like an old dog with an axe to grind, which he is. Now imagine that you’re our judge and people have to listen to you. You also have the law on your side so you’ve never really had to examine the morality of your decisions, at least not for years. Also imagine that you are near retirement and you’re sick of all the complexities of the systems that have conspired to make you doubt yourself over the years. So sick of it that you start to blame anyone who opposes you for simply being perverse. That pretty much describes our judge.”

“I appreciate your honesty. I’ve heard all this before. I hope you don’t mind if I pursue this on my own.”

“Not at all. It’s what I would do.”

He stood up. “I’ve got to go, but give me your number. You never know what might happen. Maybe there is something we can do. I’ll look into it, at least.”

“What makes you such a fighter for lost causes?”

“Let’s just say I had two older siblings who ran with a bad crowd. One day one of my sister’s boyfriends got into an argument with my mother. He pushed her down and kicked her in the ass. My shitty sister just stood there and laughed. It wasn’t the only shit that we had to deal with because of my sisters, but it was enough for me. I vowed that day I would never let anything happen to people I love if I can help it. There are some people who won’t listen to anything short of a gun pointed at them. They think they deserve to be able to do what they want to you, even if they wouldn’t want it done to them.”

I thought of my half hour in the subway. I saw the handbills on all the walls asking,
Have you seen this person?

When he left I sat down and finished my drink. I was alone again and my final dreams of accomplishing something had just been dashed in a few minutes with Moskowitz, Esq. I stared into space looking for something to sustain me.

*

I was back in a funk. For the next few weeks I would stumble out of bed in the morning and pile down some artery-clogging new age anathema breakfast food which left me bloated and lethargic. This was usually followed by a nap in front of the TV.  I had become very of fond of TV land because it was both mindless and allowed me to entertain the fantasy that I was a kid again. Occasionally I’d go out to dinner and, more often, I’d go to the bar at the Holiday Inn. I’d found that bar was a lot more anonymous then I’d originally thought and I could drink my few drinks there in relative peace. Usually that capped the day, except for those few nights where even alcohol wasn’t enough to put me to sleep. On those nights I’d dream strangely and wake up every hour or so with my body stiff from tension and my hangover doubled in intensity.

The most disturbing part of my new routine was the phone calls. They’d come at various parts of the day; a couple came in the middle of the night which lent more credence to the idea that Benoit had decided to simply harass me. Sometimes I wouldn’t get one for a few days; rather than calming down I’d become more agitated waiting for that particular “shoe” to drop. When the calls came, I’d be wired.

My one healthy ritual was to look at the pile of mail on the floor. Since my first postcard from Boston, I’d received two more. The first one was from Upstate New York, well north of Albany. It showed a picture of an old-fashioned apple doll and the caption read, “The Merkison Crafts Festival, August 1-August 19, 2002”.

The second postcard came from Vermont. This one was from the Selaquechie Inn. It showed a white clapboard building redolent of sap and good Yankee values. Both postcards were like the first; there was no message and my address was written in a strange handwriting. What was even more odd was the fact that the handwriting was different for each card. These last two didn’t have return addresses, unlike the first.

I didn’t know who my strange correspondent was, but it was the only personal mail I received, and I began to look forward to it like a special treat from the world outside. Then I would consider the possibility that it was Benoit sending them and I’d become irrationally angry.

Days went by with no improvement in my state, and I actually began to worry. Once when I was very drunk I heard a voice mumbling the words
there’s no reason to get up in the morning
. Obviously it was me; I had fallen so far that I was simply babbling, half asleep and half awake. It became hard to tell the difference between the two states.

*

It was a few weeks after my meeting with Moskowitz. I had learned to hate the stink of myself. Alone and in chez Moosehead or in a bar, I was becoming ugly, even to myself. So I went to a movie and, as much as I tried to prevent myself, I decided to have an after-movie nightcap at the bar in the Holiday Inn out on the turnpike. In the end, the night was capped with at least six scotches; when I drove home I was not sloshed, but definitely beyond buzzed.

I’d pulled into my driveway and put the keys in my pocket when the front passenger side window exploded. Instinctively, I covered my face, feeling the tiny pellets of glass rain down around me. A hand reached in, unlocked the door, and hit me in the jaw. Dazed, I heard the driver’s side door open and it seemed to me that someone was pulling me out of the car, none too carefully.

I had the presence of mind to get my feet under me as I stumbled out of the car. Someone lifted me up and pushed me against the side of the car. The door being open, part of me sagged back into the driver’s seat as my head was pushed at an unnatural angle against the roof of the car. I remained still in that position for what seemed like hours.

“I almost have to like you, Dobbs. You remind me of myself in some ways. Persistent, stubborn. I’ve always considered those my best traits.”

I wasn’t certain it was Benoit, but it seemed likely. What I found frightening was the fact that he sounded like he was a few feet away. Which meant that he’d brought help to subdue me and there were two of them. “My neighbors will hear this and come out,” I mumbled.

“Your neighbors aren’t going to do shit. I’ve been watching this block for weeks and I can see that no one comes out of their house unless they’re going somewhere. And besides, you’re in this little patch of woods and we’re too far away from the other houses for anyone to hear the little bit of noise we’re going to make.”