Homage to Hammurabi, p. 133
23
I woke in a bog so glutinous I assumed there had been a downpour while I lay unconscious. But only my brain was clouded; as my senses revived and my aches and pains gradually laid claim to all of them, I realized the muck was a blend of the blood that was escaping from the wound in my scalp and the ground that had made my mattress after Wade Linton slugged me from behind.
I tried to get up but couldn’t lift my head. Only after an agonizing collapse of time—seconds became epochs, minutes eons—did I manage to sit up, regain my equilibrium, remember where I was, locate the source of the blood and press my handkerchief to it. Still, it was another ten minutes before I felt well enough to try to stand and ten more before I tried it again, this time successfully. Somewhere in the process, I discovered I was clutching a buckle in my hand, a souvenir of the assault more weighty than the lump on my head and the blood that was leaching through the algid earthen floor.
I stuck the buckle in my pocket, leaned against the fender of the car long enough to make sure I was stable, more or less, then adjourned to the car seat sofa. In the part of my consciousness not given over to diagnosing my condition, it seemed that things were different, that Linton’s personal effects were more visible, and possibly more numerous, than they had been before my fall. I should have checked it out, of course, in search of leads to where Linton might have gone, but a stronger sense was telling me that I was not yet capable of deduction, that significance and symbol were beyond me and would be until my brain had been given time to repair its wires and reroute its messages.
I looked up. The burrow seemed so well secreted as a result of the arrangement of foliage overhead and the cut of the car into the slope that there was little room for discovery unless someone plunged willy-nilly into the thicket the way I had a while before. Like MacArthur, I would leave, recover, and return.
Though not right away. My head was a balloon of blood, pulsing and throbbing, expanding and contracting, in time to my labored heartbeats. Waves of dizziness passed through me like bite-size hangovers, so that I was no longer sanguine about fighting my way out of the thicket the way I’d come in. As I endured yet another wave of nausea, I spotted what looked to be a path leading the direction opposite the way I’d come. That bit of encouragement let me stiffen my resolve. After one last look at Linton’s refuge, I gathered as many of my wits as came when I called and lurched toward freedom.
It took a good version of forever for me to reach the clearing east of the thicket, and a sequel to find a path to Fulton Street. When I finally reached its open vistas and firm footing, I felt something akin to resurrection.
When I started down Fulton I had every intention of walking all the way to my car, but my head hurt so badly and my balance, jostled by the blow and befuddled by my effort to keep my handkerchief pressed against my wound, was so consistently precarious I opted for leaning against a light pole until I could flag a cab.
Several passed me by before a kind soul slowed to a stop. When he saw the bloody handkerchief he laughed. “Touch football, right?”
“Right.” I wrestled with the door, fell into the rear seat, and told him where to take me.
“You know your problem, don’t you?” he said when we were under way.
“What?”
“The threads. You looked like a bunch of Nixons out there, man; I mean, it’s a game, not a negotiation, you dig? Get yourself one of those spandex jobs—knocks wind resistance to zero and there’s nothing for the DBs to grab when you’re cutting for the post.”
I glanced at his license. The cabbie’s name was Leo. He’d clearly been watching a game somewhere in the park, being played by guys like me. Though I’d convinced myself I was cleverly disguised as a transient, Leo joined the army that had seen through me right away.
When I got back to the office the phone was ringing. It took a long time to think of a reason to answer it.
“Marsh? It’s Bryce,” he began breathlessly. “I’ve been calling for hours; where have you been?”
“On a nature walk.”
“I hardly think this is the time … oh. You’re joking.”
“Not really.”
It didn’t slow him down. “Anyway, listen; could I come down there for a minute?”
My stomach was making origami of itself. “When?”
“Now.”
“Do you want me here, or do you just want to hang out in my office?”
“I want to see you, of course; I … You sound strange, Marsh. Has something happened?”
“Nothing helpful. What’s the problem?”
“The rest of the book came in.”
“Hammurabi?”
“Of course.”
“Can’t you give me the highlights over the phone? Or send it over by messenger? There are some things I need to—”
“I need a place to keep it. I’m afraid to leave it at Periwinkle, in case there’s another breakin.”
I leaned back in my chair to see if I could get my blood to flow in the other direction. “What breakin?”
“The one we had last night.”
“Anything taken?”
“Not that I could tell, but I’m sure they were looking for Hammurabi. You still have it, don’t you?” he asked in a sudden burst of panic. “It’s the only copy, you know.”
“I have it,” I reassured him, then pulled out the bottom drawer of my desk to make sure, then decided to hide it in a safer place.
“We need to talk about this, Marsh. It won’t take long. Please?”
I sat up and waited for my brain to right itself as well. “Come on over. But do me a favor and get some aspirin on the way. The biggest bottle they’ve got. If they’re having a sale on skulls, pick one of those up, too.”
I hung up in the middle of his question.
By the time Bryce buzzed in the outer office I’d washed my face and hands, rinsed most of the mud and blood out of my hair, and changed into the spare set of clothes I keep at the office for times like this. The only additional remedy at my disposal was scotch, and when I opened the door I was holding a juice glass full of it in each hand.
I guess I hadn’t done as good a restoration job as I thought, because when he saw me Bryce quailed. “My God. What on earth happened?”
“I finally found your author.”
“Dennis Worthy?”
I laughed or tried to. “Dennis Worthy is a figment of the imagination, remember? The author’s name is Linton.”
He pointed. “And he did that to you?”
I handed Bryce his drink. “I think he wants to remain anonymous—you’ll have a tough time getting him on Oprah.”
Bryce followed me into the inner office and sat on the couch next to a box of pistol rounds and the bloody handkerchief I’d rinsed in the sink and spread to dry. His shirt and slacks were rumpled, his hair was a tangled mess, his eyes were bloodshot and bleary. Food Not Bombs would have fed him without a qualm.
“You should see a doctor,” he advised as I was about to issue the same suggestion.
I nodded. “Friday night.”
“But this is only … oh. Poker night. Is Goldberg still taking your money?”
“Along with everyone else’s.”
“I miss those nights.”
“They miss you. Charley was saying just the other day how much he’d like to see you back in the game.”
“Maybe when all this is over …”
We shared some wistful silence. “So tell me about Hammurabi,” I said finally. “What’s the thrilling climax? Who did the dirty deed?”
Bryce closed his eyes and leaned back until his head found refuge with the wall. “You won’t believe it.”
“Sure I will. I believe anything—I even believe George Bush when he says he has personal qualms about abortion.”
Bryce waved away my joke. “Her father.”
“Whose father?”
“Amanda Keefer’s. When Dennis Worthy gets out of
jail and goes looking for the guy who framed him, what he finds out is, the girl was sexually abused by her father.”
It hurt even to frown. “I don’t get it. Who was her father? How did he get the school to go along with the frame-up?”
Bryce opened his eyes. “The headmaster.”
“Bullshit. Rufus Finner’s too old to …” I stopped and shook my head. “Now I’m doing it.”
Bryce looked as pained as I felt. “You still think this happened at Sebastian, don’t you?”
“Don’t you?”
“I don’t know.”
“I don’t either. But something happened there, and it’s close enough to the stuff in the book to upset Marvin Gillis. How’s the litigation going, by the way?”
“We go to court on Thursday. Andy says I’ll have to testify. He also says the chances of defeating the motion are only fifty-fifty.” Bryce shook his head helplessly. “So what do we do now?”
“We find Amanda Keefer.”
“How?”
“There are two people I can think of who might know who she is; one of them’s your stepdaughter.” I raised a brow. “You still want me to handle it?”
Bryce fidgeted. “Jane Ann gets upset if she thinks I’m prying.” His abdication ended with a sigh.
“Prying is my profession,” I said, my brain’s effort at evolution apparently stuck somewhere in the nineteen thirties. “Where can I find her?”
“She lives in one of those lofts by the wharf.”
He gave me the address and I noted it in my book. “I’ll let you know how it comes out.”
Bryce stood up. “I’m going to publish, Marsh. Now that I have the entire manuscript, I’m bringing it out as soon as I can.”
I raised a brow. “Without talking to Linton?”
“I’m counting on you to find him. And when you do, I’ll give him what he wants—I’m sure he’ll be reasonable.” When he looked at me he sagged, as though I was proof to the contrary. “But like I said—I need the book.”
“I know you do. I just hope it doesn’t—”
Bryce shook his head. “I mean literally. I need to get the first part of the manuscript back from you so I can get a copy editor on it. I’ve got a free-lancer all lined up.”
I had a sudden impulse, the kind you get in this business, the kind that either makes you feel smarter than you are or inclined to turn in your license. “I don’t have it. Not here, I mean. I’ll pick it up this evening and bring it by.”
Bryce frowned. “There’s not a problem, is there? I mean, Hemingway left the only copy of some stories and a novel on a train and never found them again.”
“I’ve got it, Bryce. It’s in my most secret place; I’ll bring it to Periwinkle tonight. But I think you should wait before putting it into production.”
“Why?”
“If there is a real Amanda Keefer, and if she really was abused, her father isn’t going to appreciate reading a book that accuses him of doing it.”
“This is fiction, I keep telling you.”
“And I keep telling you that it doesn’t matter to the courts what you say it is.”
Bryce paused. “I guess I’ll deal with that problem when I come to it.”
“I think you’re going to come to it pretty soon.”
“What do you mean?”
“I think I’m starting to figure this thing out. But I need more time to put the pieces together.”
When he saw the look on my face, he said, “What?”
“It doesn’t add up, you know.”
“What doesn’t?”
“The plot. Of Hammurabi.”
“How do you mean?”
“For one thing, why would an up-and-coming young man allow them to put him in jail for something he didn’t do?”
“Worthy talks about that in the book, remember? He didn’t want Amanda to have to reveal herself in court as an abuse victim, and he didn’t want his family to have to hear those kinds of things being said about him.”
“But he didn’t put up a fight. He didn’t hire a lawyer, he didn’t hire an investigator to look into her story to find her motive for lying—hell, if we can believe the book, he didn’t even confront her himself. He just sat back and let them lock him up.”
“It seems curious, I know, but … Maybe it is just fiction, Marsh. Maybe none of it really happened.”
“Even fiction needs a better plot than that,” I said, and picked up the phone.
Bryce reached out to stop me before I could dial a number. “There’s one more thing, Marsh.”
“What?”
“You didn’t ask what Dennis Worthy did when he learned Amanda’s father was the one who actually assaulted her.”
“Okay, what did he do?”
“He hunted him down and killed him.”
“Hammurabi again.”
“Right.”
“The plot seems to be getting thicker.”
“My advice is to do what’s right,” the lawyer advised me.
“If I knew what’s right, I would have already done it.”
“Then perhaps I can point the way.”
“Are you saying there’s a solution that’s best for all concerned?”
“From a certain perspective.”
“What about from my perspective?”
“You perspective is that there is no perspective,” he said.
Homage to Hammurabi, p. 156
24
I didn’t want to, and I tried very hard to find a reason not to, but in the end I placed a call to Charley Sleet. “You know that manuscript I had you check for prints?”
“Don’t even ask; I got no more time for fairy tales.”
“This tale just turned real.”
“Yeah? How?”
“You remember I told you the guy who wrote the book might be out to avenge a frame laid on him some years back?”
“The innocent con. Right. Like I said, a fairy tale.”
“The fairy just committed a battery.”
“Against who?”
“Me.”
Charley sighed an old cop’s sigh. “Talk.”
I talked, about Hammurabi, about learning the name of the author, about trailing him through the park, about the car and the cave and the blow to my head, about the threat in the final section of the book.
“So who’s he got it in for?” Charley asked when I was done, cutting to the quick.
“I don’t know yet,” I admitted. “The only real-life name I have is Linton’s.”
“It might be nice if someone warned the guy this Linton’s out to get him.”
“I know, but I haven’t identified the girl so I don’t know her father. But I think I can get a name later today.”
“What am I supposed to do in the meantime?”
“I thought you could go out to the park and put a scare into Linton, so he doesn’t do anything dumb.”
“Cons tend not to scare too easy, especially cons who don’t have parole hanging over their heads.”
“So ride herd on him for twenty-four hours. By then I should have this book thing figured out.”
“And maybe by then Captain Harris will have me back on the beat.”
“You never left the beat.”
He relented. “Where’d you say this playhouse was?”
I described the route to Linton’s hideaway. “And Charley?”
“Yeah?
“Make it solo, huh? And make sure he knows you’re not there to blow the whistle on him to the park police.”
“How about busting him for the fungo on your noggin?”
“Don’t do that, either.”
“Any other laws you want me to ignore?”
“The speed limits.”
Charley cursed me and hung up. I pried my Buick out of the lot and drove down to the wharf.
Jane Ann Gillis had the top-floor loft in a former warehouse that had been refurbished without regard to expense. The security system included a video camera focu
sed on my nose and an audio system that was sufficiently sophisticated for me to carry on a polite conversation with Jane Ann while overhearing the frantic scrapings and straightenings as she tried to make the place presentable before she let me in. I guessed the commotion had a lot to do with the disposal of illegal drugs.
The buzzer finally got me through the thick steel door and into an airy lobby topped by a skylight three floors up and dominated by a delicate staircase that was a monument to an ironworker’s art. Since I was still feeling the effects of my mugging, I bypassed the stairway in favor of the elevator. When it came to a stop three flights up, it opened into Jane Ann’s bathroom.
The elevator retreated at my back as Jane Ann appeared in the doorway, weary and unfocused. Beneath her gray shirt, red shorts, and black suspenders, her boots were white this time, knee-high, decorated with silver studs and turkey feathers. Given the site of our encounter, I was thankful she wasn’t wearing a towel.
As she grasped her suspenders just below her clavicles, her smile was as kinetic and uncertain as my own mixed sentiments. “Rather a new concept in entryways, isn’t it?” I said, gesturing to the primarily porcelain surroundings.
She raised a brow. “Foyers are such a waste of space—I thought I’d do something with mine.”
“What happens when someone’s using it?”
“Then someone else gets a big surprise.”
She turned on a heel and led me into the core of the loft. It was vast, close to two thousand square feet, I guessed, entirely high-gloss white but for the vinyl that made the floor a horizontal vein of coal, so brightly lit by its skylights and spotlights it sparked a pain behind my eyes. The art on the walls was sadistic, blood-red shafts piercing puffy gray protuberances that were humanistic if not quite human. The furnishings were so simple—metal and white leather, stone and chrome and glass—they must have cost a fortune.
The guy on the couch was Lloyd, wearing nothing but black bikinis and a headset, his own flesh so concordant with the hide of the couch his body seemed possessed of only a curl and a crotch. On the table next to him was a photo of Jane Ann, incongruous in a gym suit, foot atop a soccer ball. If I could believe the CD jacket that leaned against the speakers, Lloyd’s lullaby was the output of something called The Butthole Surfers. Next to the speakers, a pit bull was chained to a ring in the floor, but he didn’t seem to mind.
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