Dead Money rrm-1

by Grant Mccrea

  Then that’ll be a little tough.

  I have my ways.

  More power to your ways, I said. You got a beer?

  Jules snorted. In a you-got-me-there kind of way. Went to the fridge.

  I took this to be an excellent sign.

  He brought me an Anchor Steam. One for himself. He sprawled back on the couch.

  You seem very relaxed, I said.

  Shouldn’t I?

  For a guy charged with murder.

  He fixed me with a stare.

  I didn’t do nothing, he said. Why should I be worried?

  No reason. Kind of a stressful experience, though, I would think.

  I guess, he said, taking a pull off the beer.

  Smoke? he said, pulling out a pack of my favorites.

  I took one. He lit them both.

  Something had happened. The lost boy in him had vanished.

  I drank my beer. Tried to bond a bit. Talked a bit about the Rangers.

  The atmosphere was as conducive as it was going to get. I plunged in.

  Listen, I said, there’s one thing.

  Yo, brotha.

  I was talking to the ADA. You know, the Assistant District Attorney?

  Yo, you think I’m stupid?

  Actually, no. I think you’re a very bright guy, Jules. I just wanted to make sure you knew what I was talking about.

  I always know what you’re talking about, lawyer guy, he said, taking a good haul off the beer.

  He told me about some phone records, I lied.

  He gave me a straight-ahead look.

  Calls from your cell phone.

  And?

  To your father’s office.

  Silence.

  Four or five of them. In the days before Larry Silver’s murder.

  Jules narrowed his eyes. Looked straight at me.

  And?

  Well, given how you and your dad don’t seem to be talking to each other and all, the ADA thought it was a little strange.

  Strange. Yes. Strange.

  He took another big slug off of his beer.

  Whose side did you say you were on? he asked.

  Jules. You don’t seem to be getting it. I’ve tried to explain to you. I’m your lawyer. I’m on your side. All the way. No questions asked. But if I’m going to do my best for you, if I’m going to defend you to the best of my abilities, I can’t be flying in the dark. I need the facts. I need all the facts. Then I can take the facts and turn them into a story that the ADA will buy. I can’t be going to him with a ‘Shit, I don’t know what that’s all about.’ Because then he’ll be making up his own story. The story he makes up might not be so good for you. And I’m telling you, Jules, right now. That’s just what his story’s looking like. Not too damn good.

  Jules laughed.

  Sure, dude, he said. I hear ya.

  He still seemed way too calm. I waited.

  Nothing.

  The preliminary hearing’s in two weeks, I said.

  He looked at me.

  I’d gotten his attention, at least.

  You seen that show? he asked. The one with the puppets making phony phone calls?

  Uh, yeah. I’ve seen the commercials for it, anyway.

  It got me some ideas. Call up the old man. Get him a little crazy.

  Ah. I see.

  Just fooling around with the old fart. Yeah. I get it.

  I was lying again. I didn’t get a thing. I certainly didn’t believe his lame-ass story.

  Okay, I said. Just wanted to check that out.

  Sure. No sweat.

  I got up to leave.

  The street outside was cold and empty. I wondered. What had turned Jules from scared and confused to this caricature of cool? He and Daddy were somehow in cahoots in this thing? Jesus. But that couldn’t be. It conflicted with just about every other piece of evidence I had.

  71.

  There was a poker game that night. I resolved to go. I resolved to be a man. I resolved to win.

  I called Butch. He was into it.

  It was at a social club in Hoboken, across the river. Neon sign in the frosted window. Hudson County Men’s Club. Peephole in the door. A big lunk with a homemade haircut opened it.

  We’re here for the poker game, I said.

  The Lunk nodded, opened the door.

  We walked in.

  It was a picture from long ago. Linoleum floors. Hideous fluorescent light struggling through decades of dust and dead flies. Wooden fold-up chairs. Mary Mother of Jesus on the wall. In the corner the regulars were playing gin rummy. Beefy unsmiling guys with a lot of black hair and a way with a lead pipe.

  They ignored us.

  I wondered how Mike had talked his way into this place.

  I didn’t ask. No percentage in it.

  I sat down. Everyone was there. Butch. Mike. Straight Jake. Drunk Jake. Andrea. Jonesie. Even the Dane had made an appearance. I smiled and shook his hand. He gave me a sheepish nod. I realized that he had been more mortified than me. He’d stayed away the last few games out of embarrassment.

  It goes to show. There’s always someone more fucked up than you.

  I played aggressive. I jammed the pot. I bluffed like hell. I hooded my eyes and glared the others down, my head slightly tilted in contempt. I said little. I drank a lot. I had no qualms. I had no inhibitions. I didn’t care. I was doing it for my father, my brother, my self-respect.

  I won and kept on winning. I could see the dismay grow on their faces.

  Butch ran out of high fives. He ran out of cash.

  I can’t compete, man, he said.

  He called a cab.

  It made me strong. They’d never seen a thing like this. I was in the zone. The slightest sign of weakness I could smell as clear as rotting fish. I pounced on it. I smelled the strong hands too. I picked up cues. I folded in odd places. I showed my rags when I’d jammed them out of a pot. I showed my Aces when I folded them to a straight. I had them on the run. Confusing. Unpredictable. Dangerous.

  Andrea was losing too, like all the rest. But her dismay turned gradually to admiration. She leaned over, joked about the new aggressive me. I could smell the sexuality as strongly as the cards. I’d become a dog. A wolf. A snake. A door was opened to a new and feral world. My nether regions stirred.

  My God, I thought. I’ve become a man again.

  I won the last pot too. It was inevitable. It was a rush for the ages. I gathered up the cash. I stuffed it in my pockets, inside, out. I’d taken everybody’s money. They looked at me with awe. They weren’t angry. They were amazed. My pockets bulged. I grabbed Drunk Jake around the neck, dragged him into the night.

  72.

  In the street the cold air hit me in the face like a slap from an angry woman. The temperature had taken a dive. A sharp wind was howling up the street. A rusted fire escape was twisting with it, making strangely beautiful metal music. I wanted to shout to the heavens. I wanted to challenge the Gods to a chess game.

  Drunk Jake was drunk. He slipped on a patch of ice, lay in the street. He was giggling. I dragged him to the curb, just ahead of a barreling Denali. Jesus, I thought, that’s a big fucking vehicle. I began to sober up. Jake didn’t. I hauled him to his feet. I put my arm around him, held him up. We staggered comically toward the PATH train to Manhattan. I was hoping for a cab to pass, before we had to be subjected to the underground’s indignities.

  At Bloomfield Street we stepped over a guy passed out on the sidewalk. We paid no mind. Just another obstacle on the road to becoming a man. But he took offense. We had awakened him. From a most important dream, it seemed. He crawled to his feet.

  Hey, he yelled, the fuck you think you’re doing?

  I’m trying to rescue my frigid friend here from the ravages of the evil drink, I said. The devil rum. A concept you might well want to attend to, I added, eyeing his vein-lined face and trembling hands.

  I was confident that the inebriate wouldn’t follow a word of it.

  Fuck you, the
degenerate responded. Quote Shakespeare at your peril, shitbag.

  Ho, ho, an intellectual walking dead pile of drunken pus, I said, strategically ignoring the fact that Shakespeare had nothing to do with it.

  He must have mistaken my friendly tone, for he immediately launched himself at me, all hundred pounds of desiccated liver and grime-encrusted flesh aimed at my midsection like an RPG from the ninth circle of hell. I stepped aside, losing my grip on Drunk Jake’s armpit. Jake staggered to a lamppost and held himself up by sheer force of will. The homeless bag of bones fell face-first into the gutter, reaping a visage full of dirty snow.

  I laughed. Our dead-end friend gathered himself and launched another pathetic attack. I could see that he was going to take some convincing. I batted him upside the head as he came within arm’s length, knocking him sideways into a wrought iron fence, sending him sprawling once again.

  This time he lay there for a moment, catching what little breath his ravaged lungs made available to him, and cursed me from the prone position.

  You piece of whale shit, he said, I’ll Melville your ass from here to Nantucket.

  Gad, I said, you’re a literate piece of crap. Get up and I’ll buy you a drink.

  Stick him, Rick, kick his fuckin’ head in, yelled Jake from his position at the lamppost.

  C’mon, Jake, I responded, my words slurring for the first time, he’s a fellow traveler. An angel sent from Dante for our delectation. Let’s buy him a drink.

  All the bars are closed, Jake said, more cogently than could have been expected. Kick the shit out of’m.

  I’m not sure that our good friend here should be the victim of the mere contingency that it’s after closing time, I replied.

  The angry hobo was not appeased. He gathered himself up and took another run at me. He was hunched over. I detected a glint of metal in his left hand. A lefty, too, I thought admiringly. A creative thinker. I landed a heavy uppercut to his sternum. He collapsed in a silent heap, and bothered us no longer.

  Pity, I said. I was looking forward to some interesting conversation.

  Fuck that, said Jake, let’s find a cab.

  As luck would have it, one tooled by at just that moment. We flagged it down.

  Manhattan, I said to the driver.

  He smelled of stale cigarettes, and Jersey City.

  73.

  As I approached home I knew that I had to shed the macho skin. Kelly’d be awake. She’d be worried. In the midst of all of the bravado I’d neglected even to call her to tell her I’d be late.

  I was deflated. I felt like a shit. I thought of my unconscious friend on the Hoboken sidewalk. Jesus. I probably should have called an ambulance.

  But mostly I thought of Kelly. How I was going to explain this to her.

  When I opened the door she was there. Standing in front of me. Arms crossed.

  Where the hell have you been? she asked.

  Out, I said. I had stuff to do.

  I’m glad you believe that.

  I looked at her. My angel child. My consolation. I didn’t want to lie to her. No, goddamn it. Whatever the price, with Kelly I’d be honest.

  So I told her the story of my night.

  She alternately smiled and frowned. She understood, I thought. Sort of.

  Then the hard part started.

  I talked to Detective Harwood, she said.

  Who?

  Detective Harwood. He’s investigating.

  Jesus. He talked to you?

  Yes.

  Where? Here.

  He came here?

  Yes, she said, with a hint of defiance.

  What right did he have to come here? What right did he have to talk to you without me here?

  I don’t know, she said with a hard curl of the lip. You’re the lawyer, Daddy.

  I sat and thought. Tried to place myself in the context of earlier that day. Before the manly thing had caught me in its spell.

  He seemed very nice, she said.

  Nice?

  Yes. He seemed to want to know the truth.

  I guess that makes him nice.

  Nicer than most.

  Right. Okay. What did he want?

  I told you. He wanted to know what happened.

  What did you tell him?

  The truth, Daddy. What do you think I told him?

  I felt weak. I felt dizzy. I was having trouble following.

  Let’s talk about it tomorrow, I said.

  No. I mean yes. Fine. But there’s something we have to talk about now.

  What?

  He said you wouldn’t give a DNA sample.

  Oh God. What business did he have bringing that up with you?

  She looked at me with accusing eyes.

  It’s insulting, I explained.

  Insulting, she said, with a disdainful air.

  I thought about a bottle of Scotch. I’d finished off the talisman, but there had to be another one, stashed somewhere in the house.

  They’re just doing their job, Daddy.

  I know, I said, resigned.

  Some macho guy. Brought low by a sixteen-year-old girl.

  I sat and thought. Kelly didn’t take her eyes off me. Waiting for a verdict. Damn. Was it really pride, that made me refuse? How sure was I that I’d had nothing to do with it? I’d convinced myself. Consciously. That the memory, the dreamlike state, had been indeed a dream. Or the recollection of a dream. A confused recollection bred by excess substances and guilt and, God help me, perhaps a touch of wishful thinking. But I hadn’t done it. Hadn’t done a thing. And even if I had – that doubt again – so what? I hadn’t killed her. If she’d killed herself, as a result? Was that my responsibility?

  Probably, damn it.

  But not legally.

  Not murder.

  I’d rot in goddamn hell. But I wouldn’t go to jail.

  Okay, I said. I’ll do it. For God’s sake. I’ll do it.

  All right, she said, and became herself again.

  She gave me a small sad smile. A hug.

  God, how I needed that.

  74.

  The morning was ugly. In eighteen different ways. Not counting the blotched and pallid face that met me in the mirror.

  I slapped myself. Enough goddamn self-pity.

  Or was it self-loathing?

  What was the difference?

  I made a mental note. To explore that with Sheila.

  I called Dorita.

  Meet me at my office, I said.

  Dorita floated into Starbucks on a ridiculous velvet skirt. Red. Splayed about her like a tutu.

  You’re going to love this, she said, in a tone that said I wasn’t.

  Great, I said. More bad news. That’s what I crave.

  Remember the Gang of Eight?

  My fellow probationists? The ones whose meetings I keep forgetting to get myself invited to?

  That’s the one. Well apparently they actually did something.

  And what, dear girl, did they actually do?

  They brought in some business.

  All of them? Together?

  Sort of. They drew up a plan. They called everyone they knew. Set up lunches with all their contacts. Invited in some outfit to give them lessons in how to pitch business.

  Jesus. They got serious.

  They did. And the funny thing is, it worked.

  Really?

  They already got six new matters in the door.

  You’re kidding.

  I’m not. And Warwick is crowing about it.

  What the hell does he have to do with it?

  He’s taking all the credit, of course.

  For threatening to fire us all?

  The probation thing. A masterful stroke of management, he says. Lit a fire under them.

  Shit, I said. It wasn’t really Harwood, was it? All Warwick needed was an excuse. To get rid of me.

  You were the only one who didn’t participate, Rick.

  They never invited me, goddamn it.

  You
never asked, Ricky. Doesn’t exactly show initiative, does it?

  Yeah, yeah. Shit. I’m doomed.

  There’s always hope.

  I’m close to concluding that there is not.

  Is not?

  Always hope.

  Oh dear.

  I sat and thought about my fate.

  I resigned myself to it.

  It was time to get down to business.

  Time’s running out, I said. The preliminary hearing’s in less than two weeks.

  Let’s get to work, then.

  What next?

  Sounded like you had something in mind.

  I don’t. Sue me.

  Jesus. Okay. Let’s go talk to the twins.

  Sure. We can appeal to their sympathy. Tell them I’m in danger of being fired. They’ll confess.

  Just talk to them. Get to know them. God knows what information they may have. Maybe without even knowing it.

  I suppose.

  All right, then. Pick one.

  I’ll take Raul. I’m not sure I’ve exactly ingratiated myself with Ramon.

  All right. I’ll take Ramon.

  But there’s just one thing.

  What?

  I don’t have any idea where he is.

  Oh ye of little faith, she said.

  She fished into her purse. Pulled out a pack of matches. Handed it to me. Inside, a telephone number.

  Cell phone?

  Little faith, but quick off the mark.

  She strode out of Starbucks. She looked good from the rear. Hell, she looked good from every angle.

  75.

  I looked at the phone number. What the hell was I going to say to this guy to get him to meet me? What was I going to say to him if he did?

  For lack of something more creative, I decided to try the truth.

  I dialed the number.

  A voice answered. A smooth voice. Smooth, but not friendly.

  Raul here, it said.

  Raul?

  Here.

  Ah. Raul, we’ve never met. But I was hoping you might have a few minutes to chat.

  Chat?

  He said it as if it were a word he hadn’t heard before.

  Talk for a few minutes. Place of your choosing. I’m buying.

  Who are you? I’d forgotten that bit.

  I’m Rick Redman. I’m a lawyer. I’m representing your brother.