by G. M. Ford
"Go ahead, you fuck. Jump!" she screamed. "You haven't got the balls. You've never had any balls. Go ahead jump, you wimp. I've got you insured to the teeth. You - "
There was more, but I didn't hear it. Trask, Henderson, and I were too busy barreling into the room to catch the rest of the tirade. Saasha Kennedy made an attempt to pull Mrs. Greer from the window but was elbowed backward over an end table. She went ass over teakettle. Her dress up around her head, her heavily freckled legs sticking up like a pair of rabbit ears, she wedged into the corner.
In one smooth motion, Henderson clamped his hand over Monica Greer's mouth and lifted her completely off the ground. She struggled and kicked her legs madly. Trask and I ducked as one deadly spiked shoe slipped from her foot and sailed spearlike into the bathroom on the far side of the suite. Henderson quickly began to carry Monica toward the hall. She bit him. He yanked his hand away.
"Jump, you son of a bitch!" she bellowed before Henderson could replace his hand. He yarded her into the hall and kicked the door shut.
Trask took the window.
"Take it easy, Mr. Greer," he said soothingly.
Saasha Kennedy had regained her feet and was smoothing her dress around her. "My God," she muttered. "Oh my God, I never - "
"Look on the bright side," I said. "At least you were wearing clean underwear. Your mother would be so proud."
She began to stammer something in reply but was interrupted by Thomas Greer.
"Where is she? I want her to see this. Where is she?" He wasn't screaming anymore. His voice was tight and flat. Trask kept talking.
"There's no need for this, Tom," he said. "You don't mind if I call Tom, do you?" There was no reply from the ledge. Trask leaned in.
"I'm losing him," he breathed. "He's gonna do it."
Saasha Kennedy was rooted in place, her hands over her mouth, her eyes huge behind the oversize glasses. No help there.
I slipped between Trask and the sill and looked out. Thomas Greer was focused on the sidewalk below, rocking slightly on the balls of his fete, building up a rhythm.
"You're not gonna let her win again, are you?" I asked Greer. I wasn't expecting a reply and didn't get one. I stayed at it. "You dive off this building and that bitch wins again. You know that, don't you? She wins. You gonna let her manipulate you one last time? You like being manipulated? You gonna leave your son alone with that tramp?" Trask grabbed my by the belt.
Thomas Greer turned his attention to me. Trask let go.
"I'll show her."
"You're not gonna show her shit, man. She wants you to jump, for Chrissake. All you're going to do is make her day, you dumb fuck. A week from now Jason will be in some strange daycare center, and Monica will be in the Bahamas shacked up with an Australian rugby team or something. All you're gonna do is finance the trip."
I don't know whether it was the mention of his son's name or the image of the rugby team, but either way it got his attention. He stared at me, bobbed his head up and down, and started to cry. He removed one hand from the bricks and used it to wipe his eyes.
"Where's Jason?" he asked between gulps.
"He's safe here in the hotel. He's not with your wife," I added. "Come on in here."
Greer hesitated, wiped his eyes again, and began to slowly slide toward me a horizontal foot at a time. He almost made it.
Six feet from safety, he wobbled, swam with his arms, recovered, and welded himself to the bricks, too terrified to move. I turned to Trask.
"Get the roof team," I said. Trask headed for the hall.
"Just take it easy, Mr. Greer. Help's on the way." I thought I detected a slight nod of the head. Saasha Kennedy was at my elbow. She started to speak, changed her mind, and stepped back again. I kept talking, saying anything, just talking. Greer was shaking violently, his fingers scratching at the bricks as if he were picking at scabs.
The team rappelled down in unison. First just two pairs of booted feet, then two uniformed officers in full climbing gear. One black, one white. Bright orange climbing harnesses segmenting their arms and legs. They were six feet out from the ledge, trying to get up enough momentum to swing over to the building. They weren't having much luck. I turned to Eagan, who was still standing in the center of the room.
"Get the far window. Help him in. I'll get this one." He hustled.
The officer was trying to swing over. I timed his swing, stretched out of the window, and got two fingers hooked in his harness. As he swung back toward perpendicular, the force pulled me up horizontal to the floor, balancing on the windowsill, my feet off the ground. I tottered, rocking on my belt buckle.
"Easy now," the cop in the harness whispered.
I should have listened. Instead, I tried to brace myself on the bricks below the window. Bad move. The movement of my arm put me further out of balance, and an inch at a time, I began to slide face-first out the window.
Trask saved the day by grabbing my belt, rearing back, and jerking me to the floor. Unconsciously, I held on to the harness. My weight dragged the officer to the side of the building. He got settled on the ledge, pried my fingers loose, and turned to me.
"You okay?" he asked calmly. I had the shakes so bad it looked like I was nodding. He turned his attention to Greer. I checked Eagan. Kennedy was lending a hand over at the other window. Everything seemed to be in order. I stayed on the floor. Trask's knees appeared in front of me. He held out a hand. I declined the invitation. Trask did the commentary.
"They've got a harness on him. They're hooking him up."
I rolled to my knees and peeked up over the sill. Greer was now connected to the roof. I slowly levered myself up onto my feet, legs heavy, tingling like I'd run a marathon. I had to lock my knees to keep them under control. I leaned back against the wall.
The room was full of people. A complete medical team had assembled, collapsible gurney and all, without me noticing. The hotel manager was back. Four more cops had arrived.
Everybody was accounted for except Henderson and Monica Greer.
"You don't look so good, Waterman," said Detective Trask, a smirk bending his lips.
"Most observant. Must be how come you made plainclothes," I said.
Before he could get cute again, I asked, "anybody checked on Henderson and the woman?"
Trask turned to Eagan's partner. "Olson, go find Henderson and lend him a hand."
"Or a condom," suggested Eagan from across the room.
The tension shattered. We were still laughing when they stuffed Thomas Greer back in the window and rolled him out strapped to the gurney.
"You're a shit magnet, Waterman," said Trask, "a true shit magnet."
I suddenly remembered where Trask and I had met. We'd had much this same discussion at the time. Saasha Kennedy appeared on my left, rubbing her temple, her glasses in her hand.
"Mr. Waterman. I don't know what to say. I mean . . . I've never . . ."
"Don't worry about it," I said.
She wouldn't let it go, "I mean . . . I'm so sorry . . . I . . . "
"It was my first jumper too."
"I was sure the wife - "
I tried again. "You had no way of knowing."
"I mean . . . I should have . . . I wouldn't want you to think . . . "
"The only thing I'm thinking about, Ms. Kennedy, is having a drink." I bumped myself off the wall and started for the door. She was still mumbling when I rounded the corner and headed for the back stairs.
Chapter 2
The Embers was dark. Interstellar-space dark. Black-hole dark. Patsy liked it that way. I'd asked him about it once, several years back when I was spending most of my days and nights working on a stool implant. I'd always figured that the lighting was merely another example of Patsy's bizarre sense of humor.
We'd watched an executive drunk wobble from his stool at the other end of the bar and head for relief in the men's room. Four lurches from the dim glow of the light over the register, the poor bastard realized he was flying blind. He'd
stopped, hiked up his drooping trousers, put his hands up in front of his body, and begun to shuffle slowly across the room, working his hands like a mime in a box. Patsy had chuckled into the back of his hand.
"You think it's funny, don't you?" I'd said. He smiled.
"It is funny," he said. "But that's now why I keep it so dark. Drunks drink to forget, Leo," he sighed. "It's easier to forget in the dark. They don't have to wipe anything out. All they've got to do is make up new material."
"Very thoughtful of you, Patsy."
"One does what one can, Leo."
I'd bolted from the hotel certain I needed a drink. By the time I made it all the way across town to the Embers, I was positive I'd better not tart. I was still waffling between the poles when I stepped inside. I'd learned from experience not to make any sudden moves, just to step inside, close the door, and wait for my eyes to adjust.
Slowly, like a fade-in my pupils expanded to the point where I could make out the two couples engaged in quiet conversation at one of the booths facing the bar. Another ten seconds and I was able to make out the three solitary drinkers holding down her bar stools. I headed for the far end of the bar.
I plopped myself down on the single stool facing the door. Patsy finished up his conversation with the guy on my right and shuffled over. He read my face like a book.
"Leo," he said with a phony Mr. Ed smiled, "haven't seen you in a while. Just when I thought you'd fixed that drinking problem of yours."
"I don't have a drinking problem," I said. "I have a stopping problem."
Patsy'd heard them all. Within the limits of commerce, he'd always made it a point to keep me as sober as possible. When sobriety wasn't possible, he'd always shoveled me into a cab and seen to it that I got home.
"What'll it be today?"
"Better make it an iced tea, Patsy."
With an almost invisible nod of approval, Patsy receded into the gloom, only to appear a minute later with my drink. Before we had a chance to exchange further pleasantries, the guy on the stool at my right piped up.
"I'm tellin' you, mister, I'll cut you a hell of a deal."
"I'm sure you would, my good man," Patsy replied, "but, as I was saying, I don't need a new car."
Before the guy could go back into his spiel, Patsy inclined his head at me.
"Now Leo here is a guy who could use a new car." He turned to face me. "Friends don't let friends drive Fiats," he said with a real smile this time.
The guy didn't seem to know when he was being kidded. On autopilot, he stayed with the sales pitch. We tried to ignore him.
"Rough day?" Patsy asked.
"As a cob," I said, sipping my tea. The salesman wasn't finished.
"Sixty months, five-point financing - "
"Stay sober," Patsy whispered.
" - a five-year lease with a minimal payoff - "
"I will," I said without much conviction.
"Leo" - Patsy leaned in close - "you got anything going with Tim Flood? I mean, I don't want to pry or anything, but - "
Before he could explain, the salesman clambered from his stool and weaved over. He put a brotherly arm around my shoulder. Patsy, knowing how little I liked to be touched, began sweeping the immediate area with his eyes, looking for expensive, breakable items.
A dark circle of perspiration stained the underside of the suit jacket where it made contact with my shoulder. The alcohol was beginning to separate his skin from his bones. His face looked partially melted, as the whole puffy mass of veined skin worked its way south. A couple more years and he'd be a walking neck. He slobbered in my ear.
"I can put you in a Probe."
"A what?"
"A Probe. A Ford Probe." He bobbed his head up and down.
"Who in hell would name a car that?" I asked. "Kinda makes it sound like the seats would be uncomfortable, don't you think?" He stared at me blankly. "Thanks, but I'm holding out for the Chevy Catheter."
He must have had some experience with hospitals. Unconsciously, he dropped his arm from my shoulder and reached protectively for his groin.
"Hey, I was just tryin' to be helpful, man. No need to talk like that."
"We appreciate it, buddy, we really do," I said. "It's just that neither of us is in the market for a car right at the moment."
Before he could respond, Patsy jumped in.
"Why don't you let the house buy you a drink, my friend?"
The guy waved him off. "Gotta get back to work. Got a couple coming in to pick up a new Explorer." He headed for the door, stopped briefly, turned. "I'll be back after my shift."
"See you then," said Patsy. We watched as he lurched over, yanked open the door, and stood for a moment transfixed by the light.
"See, Patsy, now you've got something to look forward to."
"I'll quiver with anticipation until his return."
The door hissed shut. Everyone inside was blind again. I turned back to Patsy. "You were saying?"
"Oh, yeah, I was asking whether you had anything going with Tim Flood." He mopped the section of bar where the guy had been sitting and changed the ashtray.
"Why do you ask?"
"Well, I was wondering . . . " Patsy was seldom at a loss for words.
"Is this just part of some massive list of philosophical problems that you've been pondering, or was there some special reason for your interest?"
He finished up and leaned in close again. "Frankie Ortega's been in a couple of times this week asking around for you. Real laid-back-like."
"Interesting," I said. "Laid-back?" You mean like he wasn't working?"
"Yeah," said Patsy. "Had a drink each time. Real relaxed."
Frankie Ortega worked for Tim Flood. Tim liked to call Frankie his arranger. The Nelson Riddle of violence. If you got behind in your payments to Tim, Frankie arranged for your appliances to disappear. If you still didn't get your vig paid on time, Frankie arranged some sort of colorful maiming. A broken arm, something like that. Nothing too serious. Nothing fatal. The dead can't pay.
"Nope," I said. "Tim and I haven't exchanged words since the old man's funeral. Hell, I figured he was dead by now."
"How old you figure he is?" Patsy asked. I thought about it.
"Well, if my old man was still alive, he'd be eighty-one. They were just about the same age. Tim's maybe a couple of years older, so he's gotta be in his mid-eighties. Somewhere in there."
Tim Flood and my father had started out together working for Dave Beck and the Teamsters. At the time, they'd been known as labor organizers.
Revisionist history now labeled them as thugs. Neither of them minded the shift. My father had parlayed his local notoriety into eleven terms on the Seattle city council. He'd run for mayor four times and had been narrowly defeated each time. While it was fun to have Wild Bill Waterman sitting on the council, making absurd proposals, keeping the bureaucrats on their toes, the good people of Seattle had instinctively known that Wild Bill was not the kind of guy you'd want running the whole show.
Tim Flood had gone in another direction. He'd used his Teamster connections to become the Northwest's biggest and most successful fence. My first apartment had been furnished with a wide array of items that, according to Frankie Ortega had "fallen offa truck."
Tim, like any good conglomerate, had branched out. If Seattle, had anything that could be labeled as organized crime, Tim was it. Mostly it was loan-sharking, bookmaking, punch cards, and the old-time trades. He stayed away from drugs and women. By the time my father died, about ten years ago, Tim was mostly legitimate. Mostly. Old habits die hard.
I hadn't heard from his since the day of my father's funeral. With Frankie Ortega carefully holding a huge black umbrella over him, Tim waited for the bereavement line to end before approaching me. As I watched the last of the throng tiptoe off through the steady drizzle that had turned the graveyard into a bog, I felt someone beside me.
"He was a hell of a good man, Leo," Tim had said. I agreed. "If it hadn't been for me, h
e'd have been mayor." I nodded again.
My father's political opponents had never failed to exploit his well-known association with the shadowy Tim Flood. The old man never denied it. He always responded to the effect that those were different, desperate times for organized labor, calling for different, desperate measures. Besides, as he pointed out, nobody had ever convinced Tim Flood of a damn thing. This was America, wasn't it? A man was till innocent until proven guilty, wasn't he? It was just the sort of speech my father favored.
N reality, Tim Flood hadn't cost my father a thing. The old man ran strictly for the fun of it. It gave him a chance to exercise his sense of humor. He showed up for the first great mayoral debate dressed as Mahatma Gandhi, leading a goat. He campaigned from atop a spewing beer wagon, wearing a red tuxedo. When questioned about the ongoing issue of daylight savings time, he took a firm stand in favor of waltz time. "Three-four for evermore," was his slogan.
I couldn't come up with a single good reason why Tim Flood should be looking for me. Patsy waited.
"So, you say Frankie didn't seem to be working?" I asked him.
"Well, we both know he don't break wind unless Tim tells him, but if you ask me, it was informal." I was about to inquire how he'd reached that conclusion, but he anticipated me. "Frankie don't drink when he's on the job. He's all business. Besides that, he told me to tell you it was personal, not professional. Whatever the hell that means. I figured you'd know."
"Not a clue," I said. "I even have trouble with the notion that either of those guys has anything you could call a personal life."
"Yeah, me too," said Patsy. "You haven't gotten any messages from them or anything?"
I shook my head. "I can't see either of them leaving their names and numbers at the beep, can you?"
"Mules will sing opera first."
Another pilgrim wandered in from the light and took over the stool to my right. Patsy took care of him and came back.
"What should I tell Frankie when he comes back?" he asked.