Dead Man's Thoughts

by Carolyn Wheat

  The next morning, Monday, I called everyone I knew on the phone. It was time for company. I needed to hear a human voice that wasn’t telling me it was time for my medicine.

  The upshot was that by visiting time my room was packed. Jackie Bohan, Mario, Bill Pomerantz, the whole gang from Legal Aid. Even Milt Jacobs dropped in for a minute, carrying a potted plant. Soon the room was full of flowers and paperback mysteries, and Legal Aid shoptalk.

  “I always knew Di Anci was a crook—” Mario said.

  “But you didn’t know he was a marksman?” Bill asked coolly.

  “I gotta admit,” I said thoughtfully, “when my mother warned me against the kind of people I’d get mixed up with as a criminal lawyer, I didn’t think she was talking about the judges.”

  “Your mother’s never seen you before the bench,” Mario retorted. “Face it, Cass, every judge in Brooklyn is secretly envious of Di Anci.”

  Finally, I turned to Bill and asked quietly, “How’s Flaherty? Still mad?”

  Bill nodded. “He didn’t say so, but I got that impression.”

  “Guilt, I suppose. He feels bad that he didn’t agree with me about Nathan. And now that I’ve been proved right.…”

  Bill didn’t say anything, but there was an odd look on his face. I got the feeling there was something he wanted to say, but not here and now. Not with everyone around, and not with me in a hospital bed.

  After they left, Emily came in, bearing a huge bouquet of lilacs. I unashamedly buried my nose in them. “Spring!” I said in rapture. “Just what I need—a roomful of spring. Thank you.”

  Emily sat by the bed. I brought her up to date on what had happened. “But you know what’s funny,” I said at the end, “I feel sort of let down. I mean, I did it. I found out who killed Nathan and why and I proved the whole homosexual story was a lie, and yet I feel kind of empty. Why?”

  Emily smiled. “How do you usually feel at the end of a trial?” she asked. “Even if you did a bang-up job? Even if you won?”

  “Same way, I guess,” I agreed. “Elated, if I won, but underneath a little hollow. My nights are my own again, I can sleep again. No more last-minute investigations, no more surprise witnesses. My life isn’t filled with The Trial—but it’s not filled with anything else either. It’s kind of hard to go back to watching television.”

  “You were involved with this thing, Cass. As much as with a trial.” She looked at me appraisingly. “Maybe more so. You held nothing back, gave it all you had. Like you did in law school with all those causes you used to get involved with. I haven’t seen you like that for a long time.” She smiled. “It looks good on you.”

  Later that evening, Paul Trentino came in. More flowers, anemones this time, purple and red. He had news about Paco.

  “Pete talked to Judge Tolliver. As Acting Administrative Judge, he gets whatever headache cases are going around. And, boy, is this one a headache.”

  “Please don’t use the word headache,” I smiled, pointing to my stitches. He grinned.

  “Can you imagine the affidavit we could write?” he chortled. “‘The defendant is entitled to be resentenced before a different judge in that the original sentencing judge had framed him for a murder he did not commit.’ The last thing Rosy Tolliver needs is that affidavit in his court. He’s agreed to vacate the sentence and release the kid pending a new probation report. Of course, Paco may still have to do jail time on the old case, if the report isn’t good, but at least he’ll be out for now.”

  “When’s it on?”

  “Friday. In Jury Four. I’ll have some very discreet papers drawn up, and Tolliver will go along regardless of what the D.A. says.”

  “Good,” I said with satisfaction. “I’ll try to be there.”

  After Paul left, I found myself thinking over what Emily had said. It was also what Ron, my brother, had written me. Involvement. But that had been for Nathan. Could I keep it up, transfer it to other cases, other causes. I wasn’t sure, but I knew the feeling I’d had in the past few weeks, of being taken out of myself, was a good one. One I wanted to prolong.

  Dorinda couldn’t come until the next day. Working. She brought a strawberry jar, planted with herbs—curly parsley, trailing rosemary, spiky chives, blue-gray sage, and on top, fragrant lavender. She told me proudly how practical it was—I could take it home and use the plants for cooking. I refrained from telling her how few people sprinkle fresh herbs on TV dinners.

  Dorinda was bursting with excitement. “Cassie, wait till I tell you,” she began, out of breath and rosy with the cold. “Suzanne had this fabulous idea—”

  “Suzanne? The woman who runs Goldberry’s? I thought you didn’t get along.”

  “That doesn’t matter now,” she said impatiently. “She wants to display local artists’ work in the restaurant. Sell it. So I said I had this friend who takes really great photographs—”

  “Dorinda! You didn’t!” I was torn between two equally strong, equally neurotic, reactions. One was that my pictures were no good and would never sell in a million years. The other was that they were too good to waste on a dinky little neighborhood restaurant.

  Before I could express either or both of these feelings, I caught myself. They were both stupid. The pictures were fine, neither as bad as my fears, nor as good as my hopes painted them. And I had to start somewhere.

  Dorinda and I spent a very happy hour deciding which pictures I should mount and frame. The Palisades series I had done for Nathan. My Brooklyn Bridge shots, the ones I hadn’t entered in the contest. They were printed on high-contrast colored paper, so that they looked like lithographs. Some brownstone portraits, done by season, to show snow, and spring blossoms, and fall leaves. My Victorian houses from home.

  I felt a sense of real exhilaration. Finally putting my money—or my pictures—where my mouth was.

  That night I was sitting up in bed, doing a crossword puzzle, when the door opened and Matt Riordan walked in. He was dapper in a three-piece charcoal suit with faint stripes of cobalt blue. His tie matched the stripe perfectly.

  For the first time in three days, I was conscious of how I looked. My hair felt like a doll’s synthetic wig thanks to the spray-on shampoo I had to use. I had no makeup on, and I was wearing an old nightgown topped by a flannel shirt I’d appropriated from Ron when he got drafted. It was faded and soft as a baby’s blanket, and I loved it. It gave me a feeling of warmth, of security, of home. But it made me look like a shopping-bag lady.

  He handed me a wrapped package. Clearly a book, but what kind? What sort of book would the elegant Matt Riordan choose for me? He was looking at me with amused appraisal. Waiting for my reaction. A kind of test? If I didn’t like it, would I be forever branded as a philistine? I took off the brown wrapping.

  It was a 1930 first edition of The Hidden Staircase.

  “Riordan, you prick,” I said, laughing. “You knew that Nancy Drew crack you made would tune me up, didn’t you?”

  He nodded, grinning. “It did, too. I don’t know when I’ve seen anybody get as mad as fast as you did.”

  “And then you warned me about dangerous people. At first I thought you meant yourself.”

  “I am pretty dangerous,” he said with a leer. “But this time I meant other people.”

  “So what’s new in court? What are they saying about Di Anci in Manhattan?”

  “Haven’t the cops kept you posted?”

  “No,” I frowned. “For some reason, I can’t get hold of Button.”

  Riordan grimaced. “There’s probably a good reason for that, Cass. The rumors aren’t too good, I’m afraid.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Well,” he began, with uncharacteristic hesitancy, “you know Di Anci’s out on bail—”

  “What!” My mind flashed to the memory of Di Anci’s denial of release to Digna Gonzalez. And yet he, who had cold-bloodedly killed, was free on bail.

  “He hasn’t been charged with the murder yet,” Riordan explained. “Ru
mor has it he won’t be.”

  “What the fuck are you talking about, he won’t be?” My voice sounded shrill.

  “Well, the D.A.’s office is going over the Special Prosecutor’s files. Interesting problem of jurisdiction. The Special Prosecutor was appointed to prosecute corrupt officials, but who prosecutes corrupt Special Prosecutors? Anyway,” he went on, seeing my impatience, “they’ve got the goods on Di Anci and Chessler, but what they’d like to do is turn them and get all the guys they were fixing those cases for. The biggies. Starting with my old client Burt Stone.”

  “Let me get this straight,” I said through clenched teeth. “Those fuckers are going to play Let’s Make a Deal with the guy who killed Nathan? No wonder Button couldn’t face me,” I added bitterly.

  “Cass, listen,” Riordan said. I had never seen his face without at least a trace of humor, a sense of irony in the blue eyes or a wry twist to the mouth. Now it was totally serious. “The case against Di Anci on the murder is shaky. So the D.A. can try him and Chessler for murder and maybe lose him and the heavies they were fixing cases for. But if they make a deal, they’ve at least got Stone and a few more guys like him.”

  “So he’ll do what? Cop to Man One, do two-to-six? Jesus!”

  Riordan’s voice was soft. “The plan is to go for a prosecutor’s information and make it Man Two.”

  “Man Two!” I was screaming now, my voice ragged with tears. “He’ll fucking walk on Man Two! I’ve got guys doing three years for a goddamn nickel bag, and that scumbag can kill three people and walk on a Man Two?” I began to sob, deep, raw sobs. As I had that morning in the fog after Nathan died.

  Riordan said nothing. No soothing words. No “please don’t cry.” No pat on the shoulder. But no looking away, either. No embarrassment. He just sat there. It was enough.

  THIRTY-THREE

  “I knew it couldn’t be Del Parma,” Dorinda said complacently, “because of his suits.”

  “His suits?” I sounded like Jerry North feeding straight lines to his wife, who, come to think of it, was also a cat freak.

  “Because he was so into his appearance,” she explained. “His image. If he’d been fixing his own cases, the last thing he’d have done was try the Stone case himself. He’d have made somebody else do it, so they’d look bad instead of him.” Before I could answer, she got up to serve coffee to the other patrons. Being a waitress gives you good exit lines.

  I turned to Bill Pomerantz, who was just finishing his country egg salad on five-grain bread. “Maybe I should have talked to her earlier,” I said. “I would have saved myself a lot of trouble.”

  It was Thursday. I’d been out of the hospital for two days. Not quite back to work yet, but I’d go in tomorrow to see Paco released.

  Bill looked uncomfortable. I was reminded of the feeling I’d gotten in the hospital, that he had something to say to me. “What is it, Bill?” I asked.

  “I’ve never talked about this to anyone at Legal Aid,” he began, quietly but firmly. “I know people gossip about me. Speculate. Well, it’s true. I’m gay. I live with a friend in the Village. I’ve even seen you around, Cass, though I’ve tried to make sure you didn’t see me. I’m not ashamed,” he explained. “I’m not in the closet either. I just don’t like people knowing my business. Which is why I could understand Nathan.”

  “What are you talking about?” Oh, God, Bill, I prayed silently, don’t take it all away from me now. Don’t tell me I did all this for nothing.

  “Look, Nathan was bisexual. I hope that doesn’t turn you off because I happen to think Nathan was a hell of a guy. He’d walked through the fire, if you know what I mean. But it’s no good pretending he was something he’s not.”

  “And the episodes in the men’s rooms?” The words didn’t hurt as much as I’d thought they would. Somewhere along the line I guess I’d learned to accept the truth, whatever it was. Flaherty hadn’t. He never would. That was why he hadn’t come to see me in the hospital. Nathan was lost to him, and maybe I was too.

  Bill pursed his lips. “Look, Cass,” he said firmly. “It’s not easy for a guy to repress something his whole life and then reach a point where it won’t repress anymore. Lots of people do crazy things when they first come out. But they mature as they accept themselves. As Nathan did.”

  That was a help. I pushed my luck. “He wouldn’t have made it with a client either, would he?”

  “I don’t know, Cass. Why not ask the kid?”

  “I want the truth, Paco,” I said flatly. “Not the bullshit you’ve been handing out.”

  I faced him across the table at the New Deal Coffee Shop, near the courthouse. The deal with Judge Tolliver had gone down, the murder charges had been dropped, and Paco was out pending his resentence on the old case.

  Paco looked down at the half-eaten jelly doughnut in front of him. “No, you don’t,” he mumbled.

  He had a point. I didn’t really want the truth. But, like the Stones said, you can’t always get what you want. Sometimes you get what you need.

  “Paco, I need to know.”

  “Wasn’t what you think,” he muttered, still focused on the doughnut.

  “Don’t tell me what I think. Just tell me how it was.”

  He looked around the nearly-empty restaurant, then crouched forward conspiratorially. I was reminded of Charlie Blackwell, with his yellow teeth, stinking breath, pathetic secrets.

  “I knew the minute I seen him what he was,” Paco whispered. “I seen too many of them dudes not to. So I told him if he get me cut loose, I pay him back. You know?”

  I got the picture. I nodded. It was hard. I wanted to tell him to shut up, that I’d changed my mind, that the old lie would be better after all. But I didn’t.

  “When I was released, I went home with him.”

  “Just that once?” I asked, grasping at a straw.

  “No, lady.” Paco shook his head. “I seen him a lot after that.”

  The bitterness of the truth welled up inside me. “Did you give him a discount, or did he have to pay the full price?” I demanded. “And when did you steal his watch?”

  “Shut your fucking mouth!” Paco screamed, hitting the formica-topped table. “I told you it wasn’t like that. That first night, nothin’ even happened. He said I ain’t owed him nothin’ for gettin’ me out. Wasn’t no money, wasn’t no hustle. Wasn’t no stealin’ the watch. He give it to me.” Paco’s voice cracked. He was near tears. I was ashamed of what I’d said. He’d hurt me with the truth I’d asked for, and I hurt him back. And yet the hurt was bringing out things we both maybe needed to say and hear.

  “You loved him, didn’t you?” I asked, keeping my voice soft and low.

  His face twisted, tears falling from the long, lush lashes down his cheeks. “Don’t say that, lady. It ain’t right to love like that.”

  “That’s not what Nathan thought,” I said.

  Paco sniffled and wiped his hand across his face. There was a look of surprise on his face. “No,” he agreed, “he said it was okay. He even said—” he choked again, then swallowed and went on—“he said I was okay. See, I never met nobody like him. My mother, my brother, they all thinkin’ something wrong with a guy who fucks other guys, you know? Like, they can dig the money I got, but that’s all. But Nathan, he says it’s okay even if no money. Just to do it ’cause you like somebody. That’s okay.”

  I nodded. Encouraged, Paco went on. “That’s why he give me the watch. Because he like me. I’m gonna miss him a lot, you know?”

  “I know, Paco, I know.”

  So we sat there for a moment in silence. Nathan’s lovers. The irony of the situation began to hit me. I’d pushed hard to find the truth about Nathan’s death because I hadn’t wanted to believe he’d been gay. I was wrong. Yet I’d been right, too. The ropes, the magazines, the implication of exploitation in his relationship with Paco—these I’d been right about. I had known the essential Nathan, after all. The gentle lover. Did it matter so much whom he’d loved
?

  I wondered what would become of Paco. Another lover? Probably the best thing that could happen to him. To become a trick, in the Fran Lebowitz sense of the word. He’d get security and an education from the right sort of lover. More than a semiliterate dropout with a sheet could get from any other line of work. What a probation report! Recommendation: a long-term, live-in affair with a middle-aged queen. Paco would never find another Nathan, but the closer he came, the better.

  After I left the coffee shop, I walked to the Promenade. I had to think. I stood at the railing, looking out over the harbor. Boats—red tugs and yellow ferries—scudded along the water. A gull flew at me, its tiny pink feet tucked protectively under its breast.

  I thought of Ryokan. One of Nathan’s favorite Zen stories. Ryokan lived the simplest kind of life in a little hut at the edge of the village. One day, while he was out, a burglar came to the hut, but he found nothing to steal. Ryokan returned home and surprised the thief. “You may have come a long way to visit me,” he told the burglar, “and you should not go away empty-handed.” Whereupon he took off his clothes and gave them to the thief, who put them on and slunk away.

  Ryokan sat naked outside his hut, looking at the moon. “Poor fellow,” he said, “I wish I could have given him this beautiful moon.”

  There it was. Why Nathan died. Not just because he got in Di Anci’s way, but because the caring, the compassion, that made him Nathan left him wide open. Di Anci had said that Nathan had been too conscientious about seeing Blackwell right away. He had also been too generous with Paco, allowing himself to be set up through the boy. And he had opened the door to Di Anci, knowing him to be a crook, but not suspecting that he could be worse. He had wanted to give them all the moon.

  Monday morning. Pre-trial butterflies. I had to start picking the jury in Hezekiah Puckett’s case at ten.