Bressio

by Richard Ben Sapir

  Dawson was one of the few criminal lawyers in the country to have the strong and abiding respect of almost every government agency. He earned this by hurting them deeply whenever he could.

  A U.S. Attorney General known for his rectitude, prudishness, and New England sense of fair play had once called Dawson a “cocksucking sonuvabitch” to the surprise of his staff, all of whom had assumed he did not know those words. Privately the Attorney General referred to Dawson as Dwarshkopf, the name investigations disclosed had been used by Dawson’s grandfather before getting it changed by an immigration official at Ellis Island.

  Other attorneys claimed Dawson once sought a change of venue because the local television stations lacked color facilities. Lost in the blaring controversy was the fact that Murray Blay Dawson was a fine lawyer, a fact that Alphonse Joseph Bressio respected deeply.

  “Bressio. Al Bressio. So good of you to come.” The voice was rich and strong and preceded Dawson into the reception room like a trumpet down a church nave. He strode into the reception room, his tanned majestic face agleam with beneficent smile.

  “What are you doing out here, Murray?” asked Bressio. “I could have come inside as usual.”

  “So good to see you, Al. Are you all right?” said Dawson, shaking Bressio’s hand while clasping the elbow up to the arm as though to prevent escape. Dawson’s Saville Row elegance and stunning crown of white hair made the shorter, stiff-suited Bressio (no clothes ever hung on him well) appear like a peasant before a king. Bressio could feel the whole room stare at them both.

  “I’m okay,” he said flatly.

  “I tried reaching you for the last two days, and then I heard about the tragedy of your cousin—”

  “Oh, that’s nothing, Murray. That’s Jimmy Bugellerio. He’s a twice-removed cousin. The funeral’s tomorrow. In any case, it’s not a big thing.”

  “I’m so glad you’re all right,” said Dawson.

  “I think I should say no now instead of waiting for what you’re going to ask,” said Bressio.

  Dawson’s grip tightened, he forgot to smile and he tugged hard. “C’mon into my office. Let’s get out of here.”

  Bressio shrugged and followed Dawson into the Dawson suite, which was protected by another receptionist who kept people from the private secretary, who was normally the last filtering link before Dawson himself. The suite was more like a living room with side rooms attached. There were no lawbooks or degrees testifying to knowledge; rather, a conference of expensive couches and soft chairs were set around a low elegant marble table. Just short of the walls was a deep bluish rug, and on two of the walls, expensive art dominated the room. Bressio remembered Dawson telling him he knew the Picasso from the Renoirs because the Picasso had funny eyes and the Renoirs had dots.

  Ceiling-length white drapes blocked the windows and hid the bar, from which Dawson was now busily gathering things. Bressio plopped himself into a chair that had more character than most people and stretched his feet on the marble table. As always, they did not feel right there, and he lowered them as unworthy of the table. Dawson brought over a silver ice bucket, a bottle of Jack Daniels and two glasses.

  “What is this ‘no’ shit, Al?” he asked. “What is it?”

  “I didn’t say no. I said I’d probably say no to whatever you asked.”

  “May I be privvy to your reasoning process?”

  “Instinct. And you’re too anxious. Basically it’s my stomach.”

  “All instinct,” asked Dawson, “or do I come off phony when I’m in the reception room? It was phony, wasn’t it, Al? Right? I’ve got to work on that. Got to perfect being real.”

  “It was instinct. You came off real, Murray.”

  “I’ve got nothing against instinct, Al. I respect it. Especially in men I respect, but please use your head. Those people out there are paying clients. They come here because Murray Blay Dawson is not a man to be said no to. Not in front of them. If you want to say no, say no in here. Okay?”

  Bressio nodded and took one of the two big drinks Dawson offered. The glass was crystal.

  “All right. Let’s stop this nonsense,” said Dawson. “You’re a rational man. You say no. I say yes, and I’m going to pay you, so don’t give me this instinct drivel. I’m going to pay you for your stomach, which says stay out. Buy it some Turns. I don’t need grief now. I have enough at home. I have enough all through the world. From you, Al, I don’t want it.”

  Bressio leaned forward, his face screwed in confusion. “Am I missing something, Murray? I could have sworn I heard you make a contract between two people without one of them saying yes. It’s like I’m not even here.”

  “Just listen, will you?” said Dawson.

  Bressio hoisted a glass in salute to listening. Dawson took a gulp of his drink, and putting it down, leaned over the edge of the couch, fixing Bressio with his pale-blue eyes as he had fixed them on many a jury.

  “First of all, let me congratulate your stomach on knowing something I don’t know. I am not sure now I have a case, let alone am I sure what I want to do, let alone am I sure it is something either of us should touch. What I have is some confusion and I want to talk. Okay?”

  “Okay.”

  “Do you believe me?”

  “Of course not.”

  “All right,” said Dawson, apparently ignoring the response. “See if you can follow this.”

  And Bressio listened to a summation that should have been presented in a classroom as a textbook example. It was clear, lean, and left but one logical verdict.

  There was this woman who might be in danger of losing her life because she had helped a landlady. One simple act had set off a chain of events that only someone with Bressio’s connections could unravel—Dawson believed. The woman and a friend had helped the landlady break into a downstairs loft because the previous tenants had moved out and changed the lock. The landlady, the woman and her friend found a pistol in the apartment and phoned the police, and their lives hadn’t been the same since.

  Bressio sipped the bourbon while listening to the evils that befell the woman. She began seeing visions: people following her; a red-haired man who smiled at her from subway cars; a man with a scar. Her friend was arrested in Arizona on a marijuana charge. He and a three-time loser had been stopped by a state trooper for speeding.

  “It was a tip. I accept that,” said Bressio, motioning with the glass for Dawson to continue. “These pushers stop in the middle of nowhere at four A.M. for a blinking red light.”

  “He wasn’t even a pusher,” said Dawson, interrupting his line of attack. “He’s a drug-cult freak, artist type. Silly stuff. LSD, hash, ups, downs, in-betweens. You know, the harmless stuff.”

  “He’s a pusher,” said Bressio flatly.

  “Not a pusher. He’s into happiness drugs and sells enough to keep himself supplied.”

  “All right, Murray. A candy-store owner who eats his own candy isn’t a candy-store owner.”

  Dawson shook his head sadly as though Bressio belonged among the invincibly ignorant of the world. He continued: “About a week ago the body of one of the tenants who had lived in the locked loft came floating up off the Fifty-ninth Street bridge.” Perhaps Bressio had heard about it.

  “The Daily News didn’t let anybody not hear about it, Murray. She was a California beauty queen or something,” said Bressio.

  “It was a professional job, right?”

  Bressio shrugged with a somewhat horrified look which said how would he know.

  “You could find out, though, couldn’t you?”

  “Possibly. These things are touchy, Murray.”

  “Well, if anyone could, you could,” said Dawson.

  “What’s the case, Murray, what are you leading to?”

  “A few days ago I had one of my people check with the police and there is no record of their ever having investigated that loft building on 285 Pren Street. They are withholding evidence on something. Somehow the government—someone is doing
dangerous and peculiar things and I want to know why. Someone is fucking over this guy and I want to know why. Someone has killed the downstairs neighbor of this woman and I want to know why.”

  “I don’t follow you, Murray. Where is the case you want me to help prepare? Guy? Woman? What?”

  Dawson went to the curtains with all the formidableness of his six feet two inches. His hand went through the cloth and came out with a fat legal-size manilla envelope and just as formidably returned to the marble table. He threw the envelope on the table near Bressio’s knees.

  “That’s seven thousand dollars in cash, fifty dollars an hour for a week of your time. Paid on twenty-four hours a day. Even for your sleep. Find out in a week for me what the hell is going on and if you do it in two days, take a few days on Dawson, Hemler and Burns. I’m mad, Al. I feel put upon by the U.S. government and I know I have friends who won’t let them get away with that. I want to know what’s going on.”

  Bressio looked at the envelope and felt Dawson’s presence over him.

  “First of all, Murray, I’m easing out of the investigative business, you know that. I’m moving more into the legal end of things. Consultations.”

  “Bullshit, Al. You need the money. The way you bet you always need the money.”

  “Secondly, Murray, old friend, I still don’t know who your client is. Is it the woman? The pusher? Who?”

  “The woman is my client. There’s a custody case. I’m getting the child for her,” said Dawson as though everyone should know this.

  “What? What?” asked Bressio, struggling to somehow join another wild strand to a chaos of strands. “Let me get this straight. What are we doing with a child in this thing and what is Murray Blay Dawson doing in a custody case?”

  “Winning it, I hope. Mary Beth Cutler—Cutler is the last name—Mary Beth Cutler is trying to get her baby back from her boyfriend the artist, who adopted the child legally with his wife. He was married when Mary Beth started going with him. Mary Beth had a child by him. I don’t know her reasoning process, but I think she wanted the kid not to be considered a legal bastard. She had the couple adopt her and now she wants the kid back. Custody case.”

  “And the legal parents are contesting, right?”

  Dawson shook his head.

  “So if they’re not contesting, Murray, you get the parents to sign papers and Mary Beth to sign papers. Your secretary could handle that, so why are you telling me this is a custody case?” Bressio knew very well why Dawson had brought in the custody case. It was a little detour to get away from what Bressio was approaching, a tactic like the repeating of the name Cutler, which sounded very familiar but which Bressio could not place right away. It might be that Dawson didn’t want to discuss who the client was.

  “So where is your big custody case?” asked Bressio again. Dawson appeared to be thinking deeply. He eyed Bressio, then the envelope.

  “Take the money, Al. Don’t give me grief. Get this whole thing untangled about the tip-off, the loft, the visions Mary Beth is seeing, and put my heart at ease. Okay? What do I have to tell you?”

  “You’ll find something.”

  “I feel hurt that you would think I’d lie to you, Al. Have I ever lied to you?”

  “Sure.”

  “Not often.”

  “Only when needed.”

  “Take the fucking money!” yelled Dawson. “What the hell is the matter with you, Al? If I asked you to throw someone off the roof for seven grand you’d give it more consideration than this.”

  “If you’d ask me to throw someone off the roof, I’d know why there was so much money for a week’s work. I wouldn’t do it, but I’d know.”

  Dawson opened his hands in frustration.

  “What do you want to know, Al? Ask. Anything. Ask it.”

  “Why did you really send for me?”

  “How am I supposed to answer that? You don’t believe anything I say. You just called me a liar,” said Dawson, being unjustly accused. He interrupted being unjustly accused to pour two more drinks and sit down. He crossed his legs and folded his arms. The defendant.

  “All right, Murray,” said Bressio. “I see no rational cause for you to be interested in this thing. There’s no notoriety that I know of. I don’t see any great test of your skills, no chance to set precedent, nothing that would offer what I would consider a good reason for you to take the case. So let us explore the irrational.”

  Dawson nodded.

  “Does this have anything to do with your one true love of the week, whoever she may be today?”

  Dawson shook his head.

  “Are you doing a favor for some actress or other?”

  “I already answered no to that subject,” Dawson said testily. Bressio sipped his drink. Behind that hostile Dawson face, he saw a grin. Dawson was grinning at him. What small triumph was he hiding?

  Dawson might just have asked him into this thing because Bressio might just be the one man to turn him down. Suddenly Bressio knew, and he smiled at Dawson and saw the hidden grin disappear.

  “This boyfriend,” said Bressio. “This boyfriend who got busted, how much does he have to do with your client’s difficulties?”

  Dawson shrugged as though the question were absurd. He looked at his watch.

  “Would this boyfriend happen to be a one-time painter?” asked Bressio.

  “Uh, yes, I think so,” said Dawson with an annoyed tolerance.

  “A one-time race driver?”

  “He might.”

  “A time-to-time chef?”

  “Not time to time. He still is.”

  “Does this boyfriend chew his water and drink his food and believe there is an organization called the Brotherhood of Acid-Makers which defends the purity and name of LSD?”

  “He may.”

  “Does this boyfriend peddle around Greenwich Village on his bike with his drugstore in his knapsack, and has he been warned by you a score of times not to carry drugs around the city so brazenly?”

  “He might,” said Dawson, invincibly unhumbled.

  “Might his name be L. Marvin Fleish?”

  “It might.”

  “Then I have only one more question, Murray. Why did you waste your time and mine by inviting me up here?”

  Alphonse Joseph Bressio sat back in the chair, his annoyance balmed by the sweet oils of triumph. And had he remained firm in his refusal, he would have been spared a nightmare.

  III

  With cold rejection set neatly on the table alongside Dawson’s seven thousand dollars immediate ready cash, which Bressio longed to bring into his life but not at the price of an L. Marvin Fleish, Alphonse Joseph Bressio listened to Dawson begin not mentioning things.

  Among the things he told Bressio he would not bring into their strictly business conversation was Dawson’s personally defending Bressio’s late mother several years before in Brooklyn Supreme Court on a minor suit brought by a tenant. There were some people you represented, Dawson explained, even though professionally it was not your kind of case. You did these things for people who were important in your life and not to be dismissed and hurt like garbage.

  Dawson was also not going to mention his firm’s advancing Bressio money during several of his famous gambling streaks because Dawson considered these advances an investment in talent, even though Hemler and Burns had fought him consistently over the size of these advances and Bressio’s fees.

  Bressio and Dawson shared a close bond, the excitement and challenge of the law. Their friendship was far more important than some problems of a poor artist being overwhelmed by the U.S. government. Dawson understood why Bressio might unreasonably be afraid, and Dawson was ready to go it alone against the most powerful force in the world.

  Above all things, Dawson didn’t want their friendship to be ruined by Bressio’s phobia about a harmless foul-up. All Bressio had to do was say no, and Dawson would never bring up the subject again.

  “No,” said Bressio.

  Dawson wo
uld never bring up the subject again because it was impossible to reason with a dumb superstitious guinea. Impossible. “What the hell do you want from me?” screamed Dawson.

  “Why don’t we both do what we do best instead of messing around with a Fleish? What is this fascination you have with that guy?”

  Dawson saw the problem not as his fascination but Bressio’s unreasonable fear of a harmless artist. Dawson thought they should deal with that first, especially since Bressio was willing to risk a valuable friendship over it.

  “You know why. You knew it when you started giving me details through the back door.”

  “Oh, that,” said Dawson.

  “That,” said Bressio.

  “He’s a little unlucky for people. Okay. He’s not a bad guy.”

  “His motives are immaterial to me, Murray. His results terrify me. For you, maybe it’s an attraction. Sometimes you need that kind of nonsense in your life, I don’t know. For me he’s like looking into an open grave. He’s going to get people killed. If not yet, it’s inevitable.”

  Dawson sighed.

  “No, listen to me, Murray. In little things and big, he’s a disaster. He gets one chance at a Lotus Ford this guy invests his family fortune in, and L. Marvin cracks it up. He’s been in at least eleven business ventures I know of that failed, one of them a marijuana farm that I hear and do not believe he tried to put in the soil bank … No, no, don’t laugh, listen to me on this. He’s bankrupted a half-dozen people at least, and who knows how many kids he sent to the funny farm with his drug, love, karma nonsense. He practically raped your latest wife.”

  “Not practically. He did. And we paid him for the portrait he was doing. You should see Bobo’s face in that picture. It’s hysterical. Angry?” Dawson laughed at the thought of his wife’s grimace in oil.

  “That’s just it. I or even you would probably be long dead if we did anything like that. But with L. Marvin, nobody blames him. Nobody. I’m telling you. Nobody except me. He’s dangerous, and I don’t think he’s funny and I will not tie myself up with him in any way. He’s all yours. I can’t afford that in my life, not even at seven grand a week.”