There’s sunshine. There are women to love. Kids and slobbering dogs. And what the hell is life for anyway except getting in and out of trouble?
The empire struck back on Riverside Drive.
We were laughing and I had my arm around Wayne as we crossed the six lanes at the wide sweeping curve at Ninety-sixth Street. We had the light, and no one was trying to make the turn from the exit off the West Side Highway. The silver Mercedes with smoked windows came rocketing at us, pedal to the metal. Wayne was between me and the car. I screamed. I lifted the kid bodily and tossed him out of the car’s path.
Then I tried to jump out of the way myself. He swerved after me. I hit the ground with my hands. Half rolling, half scrambling, I squeezed under the middle of a parked car. The Mercedes smashed into the car over me. It bounced up. I waited for it to come down on me. Something slammed into my back. It bounced up again.
Was Wayne all right? Was Wayne all right? Was Wayne all right?
I dragged myself out. Was Wayne all right? Was Wayne all right? Was Wayne all right?
“Tony, Tony,” he was calling. I lifted my head, looking, my legs still underneath. There he was, running to me. Scared for me. Like me for him. I jerked myself out, stood up, and enveloped him in my arms.
“AreyouOK?AreyouOK?AreyouOK?” My voice repeated over and over, while a horn howled. The Mercedes had crashed. After it hit the car I was hiding under, it had spun around and smashed into the next car. “I’m OK,” Wayne said. “Wow.”
The horn was blaring. Rage filled me. As great and terrible as the fear that had filled me a moment earlier. People had come after me before. That was one thing. This motherfucker, this sonofabitch cocksucker, this slime who would eat his own mother’s womb, had been willing to kill a kid, Wayne, my kid, to get at me.
The gun came out of my belt into my hand. My hand took the safety off. I pushed Wayne behind me. I didn’t give a flying fucking shit if this motherfucker was FBI, a cop, or what. What he was now was a dead man. A fucking corpse.
I stalked toward the car, gun in front of me. I yanked the door open. He was lying twisted, his head smashed forward over the steering wheel. The horn blared. I took aim at his head.
“Tony, Tony,” Wayne cried, tugging at my belt.
I paused. “Tony, Tony,” he said again, and I heard the tears in his eyes. Some kind of reality was coming back. The thundering in my head was going quieter. I still wanted to kill. But I knew I wouldn’t.
I reached into the car and pulled his body back from the steering wheel. The horn stopped. What sweet silence. He moaned. Alive, but limp. Hurting bad, I hoped. It took a couple of moments before I recognized him.
Dominic Magliocci. The shyster lawyer with the Bergman scam.
I woke him up and questioned him before the police arrived. The French had moved to extradite him. To charge him with the murder of Samuel N. Bergman. Extradition is a long process. It had been going on for months, as well as disbarment, several civil suits, and a prosecution for fraud. Magliocci, spitting at me, said that he had tried once, tried twice, and he’d get me the third time.
It had been him. Up in Harlem. The attack that convinced me that Reverend C. D. Thompson’s arson charges were real. Which they had been. But the attack had nothing to do with it. I’d been attacked out of revenge for exposing an illegal sublet in apartment 12C.
Clearly, there was a murky lesson in that.
40.
Flawless
GLENDA DIDN’T SEE ME as saving Wayne. She saw me as the cause of the event.
There was a short debate over whether or not to put a bandage on his scrape. Wayne insisted the wound would “breathe” better without a bandage. Actually, he wanted to show it off. Then she fed him hot chocolate, a method of getting him to drink hot milk, with its soporific effects. By then, the reaction was setting in, and his protests were no longer convincing.
I understood, perfectly well, when she started in on me, that it was out of fright and concern for her son. I tried to allay her fears. I pointed out that this had all come about over an illegal sublet. The problem was not my job. The problem was that Magliocci was crazy.
“No, no, no. This is all because of the business you’re in.”
“Which is finally making us a ton of money so we can buy condominiums and computers. Hey”—I smiled—“didn’t you like your silk blouse?”
“What computer?”
“It’s coming on Saturday. For Wayne.”
“How much did you spend on that?”
“What difference does it make? He’s smart. He can use it. He will use it.”
“Without consulting me?”
“Fuck you,” I said, and walked into the bathroom.
“That is not a meaningful thing to say. If that’s the way you want to talk, then ‘fuck you’ back.”
“Where the fuck is the aspirin?” I said, staring into the medicine cabinet.
“Are you all right?” she asked.
“I’m all right enough I don’t have to go to the hospital. I’m not so all right I can live without aspirin. Where the fuck is it?”
“It’s right in front of you.”
“Oh, yeah?”
“Yes,” she said, and reached into the cabinet and pulled it down from right in front of me.
I swallowed two and marched back to the living room.
“How can you keep living this way?”
“I have less injuries than any player on the Jets,” I said.
“That’s … that’s facetious.”
“Can’t you give it a rest?”
“Not when it involves my son.”
“I’m making money,” I said. “I like making it. We’re finally going somewhere. Jesus Christ, Glenda, this was over an illegal sublet. Not about me being a detective.”
She didn’t buy it.
So I tried something different. “Just for once,” I said, “I’m doing something that’s worth doing for its own sake. Reagan, and Gunderson, and the fundamentalists down in Faith, they’re marching backward to the glorious past. When it was a rich man’s world. I have seen their future, and it’s the past. Bible teachers running the schools. Women in the kitchen and hush your mouth. No knee-gros need apply. No unions. I like the idea that I’m doing something about it. And I’m not going to stop. Not for them. Not for you.”
She didn’t buy that, either, though it might’ve been true. “Even if it means my son gets killed because of it?” she said.
“All he got is a scrape. Dammit, the kid’s proud of it.”
“Will they miss next time? Who will they get? You? Me? Wayne? Who do you think you are? Somebody in a movie who’s got a stuntman? And everybody goes home to their hot tubs when the director yells cut?”
I took two more aspirins. I was hurting so much that I lay down on the couch. And I was so tired that I fell asleep. Otherwise I would have lost my temper and stalked out to Joey’s apartment.
In the morning she apologized. She told me she loved me. We hugged and kissed. Then she suggested that if I was making as much money as I seemed to be, maybe it was time to go back to law school. I laughed. I didn’t intend to let anything bother me.
I took a long hot bath, getting the ache and stiffness out. I wasn’t moving too well, but I looked good. There was close to a thousand dollars on my body. One of the new shirts, a silk tie, a raw-silk-and-linen-blend suit, and a pair of Bally shoes, Swiss.
I went to the office and went over everything with Miles. He had done a hell of a job. I gave him an extra grand. Naomi flushed with pleasure. I sat down and typed up a two-page summary. I’m not as good a typist as Joey was. I had Naomi retype it. I ran off four copies of everything. My appointment was for five. I took the three-thirty shuttle.
John Straightman had a town house in Georgetown. His attorney, Dick Gerstein, was there with him, waiting for me. Straightman was drinking brandy and soda. Gerstein was drinking Scotch and water. Gerstein went over the papers. Straightman looked at the clock.
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br /> “Excellent,” Gerstein murmured.
“That’s a great suit,” Straightman said. “You’re looking good.”
“Thanks,” I said. “Are we waiting for someone?”
“You should dress like that all the time. You look like success.”
“Very, very good work,” Gerstein murmured again, more to himself than to us.
“Yes. We’re expecting someone,” Straightman said. “Let me give you a drink.”
“A little Scotch for me,” Gerstein said.
“Fine,” I said. “Brandy and soda. And a couple of aspirin.”
“Headache?”
“Hurt my back,” I said. “Among other things.”
“What, playing squash?” the Congressman asked, pouring drinks. He went off and got me my aspirin. “What do you think?” he asked his lawyer when he came back.
“Yes,” Gerstein said. He raised his glass. “I think,” he said to me, “you have earned your bonus.”
Straightman grinned. He raised his glass. “To you, Anthony Cassella. Dragon-slayer.”
I raised mine. We touched glasses. We drank. Straightman looked at the clock again.
“Who are we waiting for?” I asked.
Gerstein looked to Straightman. Straightman looked at me. “There’s been a couple of things happened,” he said. The doorbell chimed.
“Yeah? What?” I said. Not feeling exactly thrilled.
Gerstein got up to open the door.
“Don’t worry about it,” Straightman said with some urgency. “It’s all going to work out, and I can about guarantee your bonus tonight.”
“All right.”
“Just follow my lead. OK?”
“You’re the client, John.”
“I am. And paying very well. So I can rely on you to go along with me.”
“You probably can, John,” I said.
With that, I guess I wasn’t surprised when the attorney general of the United States, Randolph Gunderson, came through the door. He was taller than I expected. He looked well-rested.
Straightman introduced us.
“Mr. Cassella,” the attorney general said.
“Mr. Gunderson,” I said. We didn’t shake hands.
It didn’t even surprise me to see Gorilla Ferguson.
“You.” He sneered.
“Fergie, baby.” I smiled.
But what the hell was Stanislaw Ulbrecht, old Flawless Slawless, doing there?
“Tony,” he said.
“Dr. Ulbrecht,” I said. “How’ve you been?”
“Very well. You were an interesting student. I remember,” he said in a pleasant professorial way, his Mitteleuropa accent unchanged.
“I thought you were in the Philippines,” I said to Ulbrecht. “I saw a picture.”
“I am a roving troubleshooter,” Ulbrecht said, enjoying himself.
“It’s my understanding that this conversation is off the record,” Gunderson said.
“Entirely,” Straightman said.
“Entirely,” Gerstein said.
“You don’t mind if my man does a brief security sweep,” the attorney general said. It wasn’t a question.
We all stood while Fergie stalked around the room with his detector kit, looking for microphones or recorders. When he failed to find anything, he scratched his head in bewilderment. Then he chewed his lip.
“Nothin’. They’re clean,” Fergie said.
“Wait in the car,” Gunderson said.
“Drinks, anyone?” Straightman said.
“Bourbon and water,” Ulbrecht said. “I love it. It is so American.”
“The same,” Gunderson said.
“Please sit down,” Straightman said from the bar.
Stanislaw found a big armchair and flopped down in it, looking very at home and at leisure. Gunderson remained standing. Straightman brought the drinks around.
“Dick, why don’t you explain?” Straightman said.
“Actually,” Gerstein said, “the report and the documentation speak for themselves.” He stood up, papers in hand—“Mr. Gunderson”—and proffered my report to the attorney general. Gunderson took it.
“Here,” Stanislaw said, requesting a copy. Gerstein gave him one. The attorney general read every page, like an attorney. Ulbrecht read faster and only glanced at the documentation.
“Very good, clear prose, Tony,” Stanislaw said. “Simple. Direct. Not like me, eh? I gave you kids a devil of a time with my lectures, did I not?”
“Yes, you did,” I said.
“Oh, I was a son of a bitch for a professor,” he said with delight. “I followed your subsequent career, or that portion of it that was reported in the press. Under cover. Exposing corruption. It all sounded very heroic. Very American. Was it a learning experience? Did it relieve you of some of your naïveté?”
“I’m so tired of that,” I said, irritated. “That’s something I did. And I’m tired of it following me around my whole life. It’s not my whole life. You get much off the wiretap in my office?”
“Only a dog howling,” he said. “Alfoumado is an excellent technician.”
“Yes, I’ve read it,” Gunderson said flatly, and tossed the report back to Gerstein.
“Very impressive, very thorough; it would be a bitch in court,” Straightman said, swallowing his drink, then pouring another one.
“You are not an attorney are you?” Gunderson said coldly. “Any competent defense would tear this tissue of lies and garbage to shreds.”
“The jury would decide that,” Gerstein said. “But as a practicing criminal attorney, I can certainly say I’ve seen less credible lies and garbage convince a grand jury to indict. For a person in your position, going through a trial is damaging enough to avoid the entire matter if at all possible.”
“Yes,” Gunderson said. “If I can avoid being slandered, I prefer to avoid being slandered. If I am slandered, in spite of all, I am perfectly capable of bringing suit.”
“It’s academic,” Gerstein said, “but it is extremely difficult for a public figure to win a slander suit. Or a libel suit. Almost impossible.”
“That wouldn’t prevent me,” Gunderson said.
“I’ve always felt that the best thing an attorney can do is keep his client out of court,” Gerstein said. Gunderson was silent. Hanging tough, forcing Gerstein to continue. “That’s what we are here to discuss,” Gerstein said. “Settling out of court. You have this matter, my client has a nuisance suit pending. An IRS matter. He is as innocent of those charges as you are of these.”
“I have no jurisdiction over the Internal Revenue Service,” Gunderson said.
“Bullshit,” Straightman blurted.
Everyone looked at him as if he had said an indelicate word. Instead of the truth. And the truth, I understood, was that Straightman was faced with going to jail. Again. This time for income tax evasion. The truth had to be that it was not a new wrinkle; it was why he’d hired me in the first place. It had never been political.
“Criminal proceedings are traumatic and terribly expensive,” Gerstein said in a matter-of-fact attorney voice. “For persons of prominence it is worse. The media attention is constant and embarrassing. A prosecutor will indict just because there is a media situation. A prosecutor who would normally drop a weak case if the accused were a normal person will, instead, go to greater lengths to secure a conviction, because there is media attention. He knows the world is watching. I speak of professional prosecutors, not a special prosecutor like Mr. Fenderman.”
Gunderson kept his mouth shut and his eyes hard. The expression that Negroes use on Spenser: For Hire to show the audience they’re really tough.
“Oh, I think there must be some person over at IRS we could have a chat with,” Ulbrecht said. “Don’t you think so, Randolph?”
“I would not want to interfere in the proper working of any department,” Gunderson said. Coldly. It seemed to matter very much to Gunderson that he stay above it. Even pretend there was no deal. It wa
s a typical real estate negotiator’s routine. The principal pretends to be a total hard-ass, ready to stomp out if he doesn’t get his deal. The sidekick, in this case Ulbrecht, plays a mediating role, trying to find a way to make the deal possible.
“Congressman Straightman,” Gerstein said, “has no objection to paying his taxes. But what he’s perturbed at is that he is accused of criminal evasion. Which is not the case.”
“Bureaucracies,” Ulbrecht said. “Some overenthusiastic underling cranking the wheels of overregulation, taking this rule and that rule, and some other pettifoggery rules, not realistic at all and crushing the citizen. If this business were looked at by someone sensible, Mr. Gerstein’s view would certainly prevail on the merits. It could happen, don’t you think, Randy?” Ulbrecht was providing a rationale. “It could be done without impropriety.” He was enjoying it. The academic gets to work in the real world.
“Without impropriety,” Gunderson said.
“Of course,” Gerstein said.
“Yeah, you call off the goons at the IRS and then all this arson and murder by arson and Mafia stuff stops right here. Everybody goes home at night. Nobody goes to prison,” Straightman said. “Deal?”
Everyone looked at him as if he had just announced that prostitutes peddle pussy instead of providing a utilitarian social service. The silence ticked until Ulbrecht laughed.
“Let’s make a deal,” he said. “America, I love you. Blunt. To the point. Let’s do business. OK, OK, let’s make a deal. Something satisfactory to everybody. Everybody protected.”
Gerstein smiled.
Straightman poured himself another drink and said, “All right!”
Gunderson nodded soberly, silent agreement in principle. “I have some pressing engagements.” He looked at his watch.
“The business of the nation,” Ulbrecht said impishly. “My time is less valuable. Perhaps if I could have another bourbon, I can stay and chat about the details, ramifications, the necessaries of our coming to terms.”
You Get What You Pay For (The Tony Cassella Mysteries) Page 35