The Smart Money

by Lia Matera

  In an era of guilt over the lack of fanfare for returning Vietnam War veterans, people had forgotten the atrocities. They had forgiven everything done in the name of “patriotism.” Even soldiers of the “war at home” now rushed to distance themselves from their acts of conscience.

  But Dan Crosetti would never appear on Barbara Walters’ television show, stammering apologies for having tried to stop that war.

  I glanced at Crosetti’s comrade. Wouldn’t my politics surprise him?

  “One thing I have done, Danny. I’ve waived the speedy-trial date. There’s no percentage in hurrying. The delay gives us a chance to find out what really happened.”

  Crosetti’s elbows sank into the soft arms of the chair. His face flushed. “How long…?” He laced his fingers, and for a minute I thought he was going to pray. Instead, he rubbed his woolly chin over his entwined knuckles. “Is it going to be … a very long time?”

  Fear shined through his veneer of calm. I’d gone to see him in the hospital before the operation to save his legs was deemed a failure. I’d heard the same tone then, when he asked his doctor if the circulation had improved.

  Waiting would wear him down.

  The stomach cramps started again. I’d practically begged the doctor to tell me Hal would be better by a certain date, that it wouldn’t drag on beyond the limit of my endurance.

  Crosetti closed his eyes. As if on cue, his comrade stepped forward, clammy with anger, gripping the crutches like a weapon.

  “What gets me—” He breathed hoarsely, scowling at Crosetti. “Danny went to a shitload of trouble to keep from killing anyone when it was supposed to be his duty as a good American. I mean, they literally rolled the fucking war right over him, because he wouldn’t pick up a gun! Now they’re trying to make out that he’d shoot somebody because he was annoyed.”

  Crosetti squinted at his friend, tears leaking into his crow’s feet. “I just want it over with.”

  “It’s the fucking government that should be on trial here, not—!”

  “Danny, look.” I shifted on the couch, putting the comrade more or less out of my range of vision, and, with luck, out of the discussion. “In this case, the longer the delay, the better for you. I know it’s hard to wait, but—” Trust me? Even though I haven’t spared you half a thought in six days? “I’ll check with my detective this morning. What we need right now is more information.”

  Crosetti seemed to waver, his gaze flicking from me to his comrade, who now leaned heavily on his mentor’s crutches.

  “There’s been some discussion about me going underground.” He scraped his hands over his eyes as if to clear his thoughts. Or maybe wipe tears he hoped I hadn’t noticed.

  “Underground? That’s crazy. You don’t have any reason to, not at this point.” I glanced at the legless length of denim. He must realize how conspicuous he’d be, how easy to track down.

  “What if it came to that?”

  I wrapped my arms around my waist. An hour earlier, I’d scornfully assured Doron White that Crosetti would never leave us holding his bond, that Crosetti was a facer of consequences.

  “I’d think it was a shitty idea.”

  For the first time, Crosetti looked around the high-ceilinged flat. “Let’s just say I’ve seen the other side of the system. The side that does this”—he tapped his prosthesis—“and gets away with it.”

  “Danny—”

  “That sends a federal agent to become the best friend you ever had, and then tries to say you—” His mouth twisted into a red rectangle.

  I sank deeper into the cushions. I’d seen that side of the system, too. I saw it every time I visited Hal.

  “Danny?” He was my last criminal client; Doron White had made that clear. He was also my first innocent client. The first who’d touched a raw nerve of conviction, who made me want to win for his sake rather than my own. “I’ll get you through this. Just stick around, stick it out. Please.”

  Crosetti slumped, round-backed, shaking soundlessly.

  I got up, starting toward him. But he waved me back. His eyes were tightly closed, streaming tears, but he kept his arm extended like a traffic cop’s.

  I preferred to do my crying alone, too. I left the room, wandering down the hall to the bedroom. The one place everything had been okay for me and Hal.

  It could be three months, it could be two years. He could get back the full range of motion and response, or he could remain alexic, aphasic, partially paralyzed, disoriented, hostile, and depressed. Brain injuries are tricky, Ms. Di Palma. And there will always be an increased risk of stroke, seizure, and mental disorder. But let’s just hope for the best.

  I picked up the bedroom phone (“message center”— I could hear the scorn in Hal’s voice when he referred to the cordless, call-recording, call-forwarding unit by its proper name). I turned my back on the bed. The bedclothes were still wildly disheveled, comforter trailing to the floor. Usually a heavy sleeper, I’d wakened in a sudden panic; dashed out to the living room, knowing in my gut something was wrong. And I’d found Hal dressed in sweater, jeans, and boots, dragging himself toward the partly open front door.

  I took a few deep breaths, caught a glimpse of myself in the bedroom mirror. I looked better than usual, that was the killer: sloe-eyed and tousled like some damn Italian fashion model. I averted my eyes.

  Seven days ago, the police had arrested Dan Crosetti for the murder of John Lefevre, and I’d assumed the week’s worst problems would be tactical and evidential. I’d anticipated some friction from Doron White (but not his furious ultimatum). And I’d been a little afraid, as usual, that Hal might leave me.

  Only a week ago.

  I forced myself back to that time, back to my role as Crosetti’s defender. My own problems would have to wait.

  I hit two buttons on the message center, and let my phone automatically dial the right number.

  2

  Sander Arkelett sounded drowsy, his voice slow and muffled. “Laura. Sorry. Let me get back on my feet here.”

  “On your feet? What’s going on?” I’d phoned him at his office, not at home.

  A brief pause. “I had, uh, kind of a late night—nodded off, I guess. How’s Hal doing?”

  “Better, I think. They made a big production of wheeling him to the therapy room and having him walk toward me.” I’d had to turn away, overwhelmed by the humiliation on Hal’s face. “I’ve got to get him out of there, Sandy.”

  Silence.

  Then, “We’ve been through this, Laura. The medication.”

  “I could get a nurse to do that.”

  “And if, god forbid…?”

  Hal has another seizure or stroke or whatever the hell happened to him.

  I pressed my fist into my belly. “That’s not what I called about. Dan Crosetti’s here. I need to know what you’ve found out.”

  “Well …”

  A four-year association, intimately close before I found Hal, had taught me what “well …” meant. “He didn’t do it, Sandy. I’ve known Danny a long time.”

  “Non sequitur. I’m not saying he did it; I wouldn’t know. I just know it looks like it. Number one: He bought himself a rifle. Why does a pacifist buy a rifle all of a sudden?”

  “The gun seller identified Crosetti? Positively?” Last I heard, the pawnshop owner had been waffling— suffering the convenient amnesia of a merchant with a reputation for discretion.

  “Yuh.” A note of surprise. “Yesterday.”

  Information I should have shaken out of the police by now. I was a sorry excuse for a lawyer.

  “Crosetti never mentioned …”

  “You didn’t ask him?” Sandy sounded incredulous.

  “No. I just assumed—” I’d talked to Dan once in jail, but I’d been in a rush, on my way to court for a bank client. I’d arranged bail, waived th
e speedy-trial date, and then forgotten everything but Hal. “Oh God! Why would he buy a rifle?”

  “Better ask him, sweetheart.”

  “What else do you have?”

  “Lot of stuff about Lefevre. Born in Arkansas. Went to Ole Miss.” He hesitated. “ROTC, Vietnam infantry 1968 until the big pullout, did his FBI training and then worked out of Providence, Rhode Island, and Boston, Mass. Then he dropped undercover, and I draw a year and a half blank. FBI won’t say what he was doing—classic Fibbie bullshit’s all I get. Six months ago Lefevre took some kind of leave of absence—I’m working on that. And then a month ago he went back on the job and started cozying up to Crosetti.” Sandy tsked. “All the organized crime in this country and the white shirts piss away a month on pacifists.” His tone held little admiration for either group.

  “What about the other people at the Clearinghouse? Lefevre was spying on them, too. Anybody with skeletons in the closet?” I could hear the two men in my living room. Crosetti’s voice was low and sad, the other man’s high-pitched and agitated.

  “I got a list as long as the Bay Bridge. To my knowledge there’s something like thirty fringe groups using Crosetti’s storefront to coordinate their activities. You phone, and they answer ‘Peace Clearinghouse.’ You tell them which group you want and they take a message.”

  “I know.” The Clearinghouse had been on the corner of Twenty-fourth and Diamond since before I’d moved to town in 1971. I’d done some staffing then; helped with the draft counseling. Mostly I’d used the Clearinghouse to crawl out from under a teenage marriage, to escape the bell-jar propriety of my hometown. “But it’s got to have regulars. Places like that run on the energy of eight or ten people, tops.”

  “So you want the short list. Okay, I’m on it.”

  Any of Crosetti’s committed co-workers would have been infuriated to learn about Lefevre; any of them would have considered it the most ghastly of betrayals. With luck, the short list would contain the name of Lefevre’s murderer.

  A tone sounded in my ear; another call coming in. “Hold on, Sandy.”

  I switched to the incoming call. “Yes?”

  A breathless voice quavered, “Ms. Di Palma?”

  I felt a knot climb my windpipe. The stroke-center receptionist, I was sure of it. “Yes.”

  “One moment. Dr. Spane would like to speak to you.” She clicked off.

  I closed my eyes and pressed the receiver more firmly to my ear. He couldn’t be dead. Couldn’t be.

  In the living room, Crosetti’s companion was shouting, “Should have known he was bullshitting!”

  Crosetti’s reply was quiet at first, rising to an agitated “… on our side, and I still believe it!”

  “Ms. Di Palma. This is Dr. Spane. I have some disturbing news, I’m afraid.”

  I sank onto the bed.

  “Mr. Di Palma seems to have left the facility.”

  A euphemism? “‘Left’?”

  “He appears to have changed into his street clothes and gone out through the therapy room. We, uh, found some evidence that he went over the wall—the low wall around the garden—and um, we’ve been over the two or three acres closest to the facility carefully but we haven’t managed to locate him.”

  I caught my breath. “You mean he escaped?”

  “Well, not to quibble with your word choice, but from whatever motivation, he seems to have removed himself—”

  I pushed the hang-up button, switching to my other line. “Sandy. Are you still there?”

  There was a clunking, as of a receiver being lifted from a hard surface. “Yuh?”

  “Sandy.” I couldn’t seem to breathe. “Hal’s gone. He escaped from that— Oh god, I knew he’d hate it, but they said the first two weeks are critical and that he needed— Sandy, what if he has some kind of attack out there?”

  “Hey. If he got himself out of there, he’s in better shape than they thought. He’ll be okay till we find him.”

  “Pick me up.”

  “There in ten minutes.”

  A twenty-minute crosstown trip. “Hurry.”

  I stood with shaky haste, shedding my work clothes and pawing through drawers for jeans and a shirt. I wasted a lot of time getting them on, couldn’t seem to do anything without wasted motion.

  I was vaguely aware of Crosetti’s voice raised in angry praise of loyalty. Something about loyalty transcending its object in the same way that pacifism transcends specific wars.

  By the time I left the jumbled mess of my bedroom, Crosetti’s comrade had begun his shocked rebuttal.

  “Shit, Danny—that’s exactly what they said about Vietnam! ‘My country, right or wrong!’ We all thought—”

  “I’m sorry,” I interrupted. “I have to go. I have to take care of a family— Oh, no!” I remembered an ex parte motion I was supposed to argue at four o’clock. No use adding malpractice to my problems.

  I crossed to the living-room phone and called my secretary. “Rose, I can’t make my four-o’clock motion, but I need the ruling. Somebody’s going to have to argue it for me. See if Jerry’s free. Or Hannah. Give them the file—it’s not that much material.”

  “All right.” I could hear the trepidation in her tone.

  Doron White would explode if he learned she was shopping around my motion at the last minute.

  I surprised us both. “Fuck Doron!”

  I hung up, turning back to my guests. Dan Crosetti had tucked his crutches back under his arms, and was trying to straighten himself out of my down chair. The effort, or perhaps his argument with his companion, had left his face flushed.

  He clumped awkwardly toward me, crutches sinking into the deep-piled area rug. “What’s wrong, Laura?”

  In the street, a car horn popped, three long, two short. Sandy.

  I didn’t meet Crosetti’s eye. “I’ll phone you later, Danny. I need to ask you some questions.”

  I grabbed my purse and ran downstairs.

  Buy The Good Fight Now!

  About the Author

  Lia Matera is the Edgar, Anthony, and Macavity Award–nominated author of nine novels. A graduate of UC Hastings College of the Law, where she was editor in chief of the Hastings Constitutional Law Quarterly, Matera was a teaching fellow at Stanford Law School before becoming a full-time writer of legal mysteries. She lives in Santa Cruz, California.

  All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this ebook or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Copyright © 1988 by Lia Matera

  Cover design by Jason Gabbert

  ISBN: 978-1-5040-6675-4

  This edition published in 2021 by MysteriousPress.com/Open Road Integrated Media, Inc.

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