Dead Money

by Grant Mccrea

  That doesn’t sound like all that much, for her, I said. Laura looked at me sadly.

  Well, we don’t know that, Rick. And even if it were, it’s rolling dice. Every day your body survives that kind of abuse is a minor miracle. One day it can catch up with you. It will catch up with you.

  It would have been depressing, if I wasn’t already as down as a man can be.

  My extra doses weren’t doing a thing for me.

  But, Laura continued.

  But?

  There was something else. That wasn’t enough?

  There’s no easy way to put this, Rick, so I’ll just say it. Please do.

  There was semen, Rick. Semen?

  This was not a word I had expected to hear.

  What? Semen? Where?

  Where you’d expect it to be, Rick.

  Her incessant repetition of my name was beginning to get on my nerves. I knew it was meant to soothe. To placate. Establish rapport, empathy. But it was pissing me off.

  That’s impossible, Laura, I said sharply. Come on. Lab contamination or something. We haven’t. We hadn’t. In years. Jesus. Two or three at least.

  Yes, she said. I understand that you had said that. Actually, that’s why it seems to be an issue.

  I didn’t remember telling anyone that. But then, I didn’t remember much about that day. Nor, I suddenly remembered, about the night before that day.

  Something vague and ugly came back to me. But no. No way. That had been a dream. A drunken hallucination.

  Not one that I was about to share, with my good friend Harwood in the room.

  So what the hell is this? I said. How is this possible?

  That’s something we might have to look into, Rick.

  Jesus, I said. Jesus H. Christ. She didn’t have a boyfriend. She didn’t have the energy to have a boyfriend. She could barely get off that goddamn couch. For Christ’s sake, she never even left the house.

  Laura didn’t respond. The weary eyes of Detective Harwood fixed on mine. I hung my head. I couldn’t return his gaze. I felt an unaccountable guilt. Or maybe it was shame. Because something was going on here. Had been going on here. And I didn’t know what it was. I didn’t have a goddamn clue. And it had been my job to know. I’d let Melissa down. Again. I was only beginning to learn of all the ways I’d let her down.

  Or maybe. No. Not that. It couldn’t be that. Jesus. I was a happy drunk. Depressive, sure. But homicidal?

  Laura finally spoke. Not you then, Rick?

  I lifted my head. I was very, very tired.

  No, Laura, I said, with as much dignity as I could muster. Not me.

  And you have no idea who?

  Jesus, Laura.

  I slowly shook my head.

  Harwood hadn’t taken his eyes off me.

  And, said Harwood.

  It was the first word he’d spoken.

  I turned to face him. He had that sardonic look. The one that grizzled cops habitually wear. You’re going to lie to me, it says. Everybody does. Always.

  He looked at Laura, raised his eyebrows.

  Laura cleared her throat.

  And, she said. There were signs of …

  Signs of what?

  Signs of… forcing.

  She said the last word softly.

  What? Forcing? Rape?

  Forcing. I’d rather say forcing. Rape has all sorts of …connotations, that aren’t necessarily apparent here.

  A strange calm descended over me. I’d reached my limit. My emotional life shut down. It could not take any more assaults.

  It gave me a certain clarity.

  I don’t understand, Laura, I said. I just don’t understand. There was no evidence of …

  No. No forced entry. No broken furniture. No disarray.

  Except the disarray that was Melissa’s life. Our lives.

  Kelly was there, I said.

  Upstairs. Yes. In her room.

  So, how? How could something have happened?

  If we knew that, Rick …

  Harwood turned his hound-dog eyes on me again. Jesus, I said, shaking my head.

  It was a calculated response. Harwood’s stare was unrelenting. I felt obliged to be as convincing as possible.

  So, Harwood said. We need to do some further investigation.

  Yes, I said. I understand.

  Harwood lit a Marlboro. The smoke made me choke. I coughed. He lifted his eyebrows. As if some comment was expected of me.

  I couldn’t think of one. What was the appropriate thing to say, I asked myself, in this situation? They didn’t teach you that in law school.

  We need your permission for a few things, said Laura.

  Sure, sure. Whatever.

  There was a long pause. Harwood smoked. I wheezed. There was something intensely irritating about his passive smoke.

  Like what? I asked. You’ve already ransacked the house.

  You know, DNA things.

  DNA things? You’re kidding me, right?

  I’m sorry, Rick. I was trying to get to this gently. We’d like a DNA sample from you. We could get it in other ways, of course. But I thought it better to be upfront about this.

  You’re kidding me, right? Laura? You’re kidding?

  I felt foolish at my stammering.

  Harwood chimed in.

  She’s not kidding, Rick.

  I tried to remember when I’d asked for his opinion. When I’d told him he could call me Rick. He’d said it with distaste. A curl of the lip. Too much emphasis. She’s not kidding, Rick.

  I looked straight into his eyes for the first time. They were yellow, like his face. He blew some more smoke at me.

  Clearly this was the beginning of a beautiful friendship.

  Fuck you, Harwood, I said.

  I hadn’t meant to say it. Just to think it. But it came out.

  He didn’t flinch. I guess he’d heard worse.

  It won’t be hard to get a warrant, he said, in a bored tone.

  I may not have been much of a criminal lawyer, but I knew enough to figure he was right. Cherchez l’homme.

  I turned to Laura.

  This is really humiliating, I said.

  I know it is. Listen. It’s just routine. You know how it works. We want to eliminate you as a suspect. Officially. Get on to the real investigation. No distractions.

  Suspect? It wasn’t even clear there’d been a crime. Jesus, I thought. There must be something else. Something they’re not telling me.

  Harwood didn’t look like a guy who wanted to eliminate me as a suspect. He looked like a guy who wanted to beat me with a rubber hose.

  He got up and left the room, treating me to a sardonic smile.

  I’m sorry, Laura, I said. I can’t do that right now. It just doesn’t seem right.

  Laura shook her head.

  Rick, I don’t really understand why you’re doing this. But I’m not going to argue with you about it. I know you’re going through a lot.

  I appreciate that.

  She changed the subject. We talked a few minutes about the old days. But my heart wasn’t in it.

  I wasn’t even sure my heart was still in my body.

  I took my leave. Laura got up to escort me to the door. I could feel the tension in her as she walked me out. She wanted to commiserate. To give me a reassuring hug. But she couldn’t do it.

  Wouldn’t be professional.

  68.

  WHEN I GOT TO THE OFFICE there was a message on my desk. I was to go to Warwick’s office without delay. What a pleasure. What an excellent way to continue this marvelous day.

  Bob Shumaker, Ethics Guru, was with Warwick in his office.

  This was not a good sign.

  They both had Serious Faces on.

  Rick, said Warwick.

  Now I knew that this was big trouble. Warwick hadn’t used my first name since the Reagan administration.

  I’m not going to beat about the bush, he said. I’m going to get right to the issue. Dispense with the formal
ities.

  I wondered how many semantically identical clichés he was planning to generate, before he got to the point.

  We think you should take a leave of absence, he said.

  He looked at Shumaker. Shumaker nodded.

  I opened my mouth to respond. To say that I didn’t want to take a leave of absence. That I needed to keep busy to stay sane. But Warwick didn’t give me the chance.

  This has nothing to do with your coming in at eleven-thirty, Rick. We understand that you’re under a lot of stress. This is a terrible thing. But there are other factors to consider.

  My view was not being solicited. I stayed silent.

  A Detective Harwood was here this morning, said Warwick.

  Damn. He moved fast.

  Warwick looked at Shumaker. Shumaker nodded. As though the fact that Harwood had been there needed independent confirmation.

  Strangely, it wasn’t Warwick I wanted to kill. It was Shumaker.

  And frankly, Rick, said Warwick, some of the things he had to say were a mite disturbing.

  I raised my eyebrows.

  He says you’re refusing to give a DNA sample, Rick. That they’re going to have to get a warrant for it. That you want to have a cremation, right away.

  He paused.

  Harwood. That stupid prick.

  I had nothing to say.

  Rick. This doesn’t make a good impression.

  I refrained from telling him that it was none of his goddamn business. What I chose to do with my wife’s remains.

  And of course we’ve got to think of morale, he said.

  There it was.

  We just can’t afford to have this kind of distraction around here, Rick. So. We’re asking you to take a leave of absence. Just until all of this is cleared up.

  I bit my tongue.

  Sure, I said. I understand.

  It’ll be good for you, Rick. Clear your head. You’ve got a lot to deal with.

  I had a few choice things to say to that. But I didn’t bother. There was no percentage in it.

  I got up to leave. I had to get out of there. Before I did something I couldn’t take back later.

  There’s one other thing, he said.

  What now? I thought. He’s going to cut my compensation too? Unpaid leave of absence? I sat back down. My back hurt. I was getting a headache.

  FitzGibbon wants me to keep you on his son’s case.

  I raised my eyebrows. They were getting a workout.

  I tried to talk him out of it, Warwick continued, but he seems to have developed quite a liking for you.

  There’s no accounting for taste, I said.

  It’s a no-lose situation for us, said Warwick, showing no sign of having caught the irony. For you. He appears to think the kid is guilty. He probably is, from what I hear. So you don’t have any pressure to get him off. You just need to keep FitzGibbon happy. Go through the motions. Plead it down if you can.

  Sure, I said, ignoring Warwick’s tenuous grasp of an attorney’s duty to zealously represent his client.

  You can work from home, continued Warwick. And if you need some help, you can have it. Anyone you want. Just let me know. I’d suggest Herman Walker. He had two years in the Brooklyn DA’s office. Sharp kid. Could be useful.

  I pictured spending time with Herman Walker and his matching tie and suspenders.

  I’d like Dorita Reed, I said.

  Reed? he asked. She’s a T & E lawyer, for God’s sake.

  I trust her. She’s got judgment.

  Warwick looked irritated.

  You did say ‘anybody,’ I reminded him.

  Yes, I did, he replied, with a shake of the head. All right. Take Reed. You won’t need her full-time, will you?

  Not as of now.

  If that changes, let me know. We need her around here.

  I will. I might need Vinnie Price a bit too.

  Warwick shook his head with a frown. But he didn’t say no. I took it for a yes.

  I got up again to leave. Warwick looked at Shumaker.

  Shumaker nodded.

  Approval. We all need it.

  69.

  I STOOD FOR A LONG TIME staring out my office window. Below me were rooftops. Manhattan rooftops. Ancient wooden cisterns. The occasional evergreen tree, struggling to provide a contrast to the impossibly thick accretion of concrete, steel and artificial space. I saw it all around. I saw it from space. How thin it was from there. How God with a shovel, a spade, a can opener, could peel it off and toss it in the sea, if he so wished.

  How fragile it all was.

  I saw a woman on a rooftop. She wore a long brown overcoat. She stood at the edge of the roof. She had something in her hand. I couldn’t make out what it was. She didn’t move. She was thinking, too. She’d been hurt, like me. Hoping to take some solace from the view. Letting her imagination create a world from a detail on the horizon. Yes. That could be me. Living there. In that building, way up north. The thirty-third floor of that building there. There’d be children in that home. Happy, playing children. And paintings on the wall. And phone calls from friends. A life. A place.

  A home that gave her more than pain and dread and solitude.

  My father spoke to me.

  A man did not give up.

  I shook myself. I resolved to do my job. I had a client. My client needed me. He sure as hell needed somebody. Soldier on, I said. Be right. Be good. The rest will take care of itself.

  I wasn’t sure I really bought into it. But I couldn’t resist it, either. I didn’t have much choice. I wasn’t suicidal.

  I loved my misery too much to give it up.

  I sat and thought.

  Strange, I mused, that FitzGibbon would insist that I stay on. If he was involved in something, it could only mean he figured I was incompetent enough to cause no harm. Not beyond the realm of possibility. Though I preferred other theories. That he wasn’t. That he could see that he needed a man of my sterling abilities to get his only natural son out of this mess.

  The problem being, of course, that everything pointed to the opposite conclusion.

  I gathered up my four-by-six index cards, with the scribbles and lines. I untacked them from the walls. I put them in my jacket pocket. I took the elevator down. I went out the revolving door. I walked down the avenue. I stopped at Michel’s. Last time I’d be there for a while. I sat at the bar. I had a steak. Onions fried in butter. Fuck cholesterol. A glass of Australian Shiraz. Another. Three. I placed the cards on the bar, in groups of five. I looked at them. I read the words. I followed the lines. I wrote in the margins. I drew more lines. I’d stolen some colored pens from the office supply closet. A man of action thinks ahead.

  When I got bored with the colored pens, I made a list:

  Larry Silver is dead.

  His body was found in an alley three blocks from Jules’s loft; blunt trauma to the head; his body had been covered with a cardboard box.

  The perp was probably right-handed, and Larry was probably sitting down when he got whacked.

  Jules is right-handed.

  He smokes my brand.

  Larry Silver was a lowlife and a snake, a penny-ante drug dealer, a small-time scam artist with pretensions to more.

  In other words, he probably deserved what he got.

  Jules is a bit of a nutcase; he disfigures himself; has some kind of samurai fetish; might be suicidal.

  He has a girlfriend, Lisa; she is a nutcase too.

  But rather sexy, in a tiny green-eyed junkie kind of way.

  She has a dragon tattoo.

  Jules has a lion tattoo.

  Absolutely nobody is telling me the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.

  But then, isn’t that always the case.

  I thought. I pondered. I came to a conclusion.

  I didn’t know a fucking thing.

  70.

  I DRIFTED IN AND OUT OF SLEEP. I stayed suspended in that dreamy state. To live a half-life, suspended between dream and blissful
blank sleep, alive and not alive, I mused. Maybe death was something like this. Dreaming, I thought, not for the first time, might be practice for the afterlife.

  I finally dragged myself out of bed. Out of the house. It was closer to eleven o’clock than ten. I felt vague and dirty.

  At the corner, waiting for the light to change, I remembered. Where was I going?

  Things were different now.

  I walked back to the house. I sat on the couch.

  It made me uncomfortable. It was someone else’s couch.

  I got up.

  I sat in the armchair.

  I considered the options.

  I couldn’t go to work. I couldn’t stay in the house. The ghosts would suck me dry.

  There was only one option. I packed up the laptop. I stuffed my index cards into the computer bag.

  I went to Starbucks.

  I was surprised to find one of the big plush armchairs free. I plugged in the laptop. I set my papers on the chair. To discourage interlopers. I went to the counter. I ordered a tall skinny latte. I smiled at the fellow at the cash. I cooed at some babies in strollers. I nodded at my fellow laptop geeks. I eavesdropped on some chatter from the three girls studying for the bar exam. I took my coffee to my chair. I fired up the computer. I thanked the Lord for wireless access. I checked my voice mail, e-mail. Nothing urgent. I opened the Times. I sat back. I looked around.

  Hey, I thought. This isn’t half bad. I could get used to it.

  I was halfway through the Times when the laptop beeped. E-mail. I opened it up. It was from a name I didn’t recognize. There was an attachment. Virus warnings went off in my head.

  My cell phone rang. I picked it up. It was Butch.

  Don’t delete it, he said.

  What?

  Download it.

  Okay.

  Butch hung up.

  I downloaded the attachment. Opened it up. PDF files. I took a look. Scanned documents. Old. It didn’t take me long to recognize them. The trust file.

  Shit. Had to love that Butch.

  I spent a few hours reading musty documents. Without the must. This time I had the luxury. It was my only case. What else was I going to do? I plowed through it all. Every page. Every dusty word of every convoluted clause of every will and trust deed, until I got back to the FitzGibbon trusts again. ‘Twenty million dollars to his issue, upon reaching their maturity.’ An old-fashioned word, ‘issue.’ Babies issuing from the womb. Women as vessels. From which issued the fathers’ progeny. Very quaint. I could hear the protests, if someone used it now.