79 Park Avenue

by Harold Robbins

  The intercom on the Old Man’s desk buzzed. He flipped the switch. “Yes?” he barked into it.

  “Miss Flood is here,” his secretary’s voice said.

  “Send her in,” the Old Man said.

  The door opened and Marja came in. Her gold hair was brushed loosely. She wore the same blue poodlecloth coat she had worn all through the trial. She came into the office with the same sure walk that had always distinguished her from other women.

  She ignored me and looked down at Vito. “What’s up?” Her voice was husky.

  His smile was tight under his elegant moustache. “I think the D.A.’s about to make us a deal.”

  She looked up at me. A glow came into her eyes. “Mike, are you—?”

  Vito’s voice was sharp. “I said the D.A., not your boy-friend.”

  The glow faded from her eyes as quickly as it had appeared. She looked at him again. “How come?” she said.

  Silently I handed her the birth certificate. She looked at it quickly, then up at me. A naked pain had come into her eyes. “Where did you get this?” she asked, her voice trembling.

  I nodded at Vito.

  She looked down at him. “How’d you get this, Vito?” Her voice had gone cold as ice.

  He smiled up at her. “Tom brought it to me.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me about it?” she asked.

  “And have you louse up your own case because you wanted to protect your boy-friend?” he retorted. “I’m your lawyer. I’m supposed to defend you. Even against yourself.”

  She took a deep breath. “Who cares about him? If I wanted him to know, I would have told him a long time ago. It’s Michelle I care about. She’s happy now. She thinks her father was killed in the war. How do you think she would feel if she found out how she was born?”

  “You think she’d like it better to know that her mother is in the can?” Vito asked.

  “It’s a lot better than finding out she’s a bastard!” Marja snapped.

  Vito got to his feet. “You’ll do as I say,” he said. “There’s too much at stake for you to back out now.” He turned to the D.A. “Well, John, what do you say?”

  The Old Man looked at him silently.

  “Have we got a deal?” Vito persisted.

  The D.A. spoke softly, his eyes on me. “Keyes is trying the case. I made it a point never to interfere with my assistants. Ask him.”

  Vito looked at me questioningly.

  “There’ll be no deal,” I said.

  “You won’t like it, Mike,” he said. “I’m goin’ to put you on the stand, and when I get through with you, you’ll have no place to go. You’ll be all washed up here.”

  “I’ll take a chance,” I said grimly.

  Vito turned back to the Old Man. “That ends your crack at the Governor’s chair.”

  The Old Man’s eyes were inscrutable. “I’ll go with Mike,” he said.

  Vito turned toward the door, his face red and angry. “Come on, Maryann.”

  She started after him.

  “Marja,” I called.

  She stopped and looked back at me. I walked over to her and took her hand. “Why didn’t you tell me?” I asked gently.

  She didn’t answer. Her eyes were shining with a strange brilliance. I wondered if there were tears behind those lids.

  “Why, Marja?” I persisted.

  Her eyes stared into mine, wide and unblinking. “I lost one baby because they didn’t think I could take care of it, Mike,” she half whispered. “I didn’t want to lose this one.”

  “Coming, Maryann?” Vito’s voice sounded harshly from the doorway.

  “I’m sorry, Mike,” she whispered, pulling her hand from mine and going out of the door.

  I walked slowly back to the Old Man. “Well, I really snafued that one for you.”

  He smiled. “I apologise for not trusting you, Mike.”

  “Forget it, John,” I said. “It’s not important now.”

  He got to his feet heavily. “Court will be open in a few minutes. We better get down there.”

  I felt as the ancient Roman gladiators must have felt as they marched into the arena. “Morituri te salutamus,” I said.

  He was busy with his own thoughts. “What’s that?” he asked sharply.

  I grinned at him. He was proud of his knowledge of Latin. It wasn’t often one had the chance to rub him, even if it was through inattention on his part. “We who are about to die salute you,” I translated, grinning.

  There was an atmosphere of repressed excitement in the courtroom. It was as if some mysterious sense had communicated to everyone there that something was about to break. Even the normally blasé court clerks were fidgeting restlessly.

  The judge arrived twenty minutes late. We rose as he ascended the bench. A moment later the court was in session.

  Vito rose to his feet and walked toward the bench. His voice rang through the courtroom. “The defence would like to call as its first witness Mr. Michael Keyes of the District Attorney’s staff!”

  Even the judge was visibly startled. He glanced toward us while a roar went up in the courtroom. I could hear the footsteps of several reporters racing up the aisles to the doors. He banged his gavel for order. A moment later it was quiet.

  “That’s a most extraordinary request, counsellor,” he said. “I presume you have sufficient reason for your action.”

  “I have, your Honour,” Vito answered. “I believe it most important in the interest of securing justice for my client that Mr. Keyes be asked to take the stand.”

  The judge looked at me and I began to stroll across the court. Vito watched me, his face impassive.

  She looked up at me as I walked past her table. Her face was white and drawn. Then she was behind me and the witness chair in front of me. I climbed the step and turned to face the court clerk who was about to administer the oath. A dozen flashbulbs went off, blinding me for a moment.

  I heard her voice while I was blinking my eyes. It was strong and clear. “Your Honour, may I have a moment to talk to my attorney? I want to change my plea to guilty!”

  Another roar broke out in the courtroom, even greater than the one that had preceded it. More flashbulbs went off, and by the time I could see, Vito had gone back to her table.

  They argued visibly for a moment, then Vito looked up at the judge. “May I ask for a ten-minute recess, Your Honour? I need a moment with my client in private.”

  The judge’s gavel banged. “The court will recess for ten minutes.” He left the bench and I stepped down from the witness stand and crossed to my table.

  Marja and Vito had already vanished into the conference room. I looked around the court. The people standing in the back of the court were packed like sardines. I felt a hand tugging at my sleeve. I looked down.

  It was the Chief. “You were right,” he whispered in an admiring voice. “The girl’s sheer guts. All the way!”

  The conference door opened and Vito came out alone. He looked at the crowd, seeming to search for someone. I tried to follow his gaze, but he was too quick for me. He made a motion with his head that seemed almost like a nod and went back into the conference room.

  I was still watching the crowd. A moment later a man got to his feet. His steel-white hair shone in the overhead lamps. He began to walk up the aisle toward the door. I recognised him immediately: Joker Martin. I wondered what he had been doing here, but the conference door opened and I forgot all about it.

  Marja came into the court first; her face was set and calm. Vito followed her. They went to their table and sat down.

  A moment later the court was in session again. Vito got to his feet and faced the judge. His face was white, but his voice was steady. “My client wishes to enter a plea of guilty to all the charges.”

  The judge looked down at her. “Is that your wish, Miss Flood?”

  She got to her feet slowly. “It is, Your Honour.”

  We fought our way through the crowd to the elevators. My back ach
ed from all the pounding I had taken from well-wishers. At last I was alone in the elevator with the Chief.

  “You’ll have my resignation on your desk in the morning, sir,” I said.

  He didn’t look at me.

  “I’m sorry about all the mess, sir,” I said.

  He didn’t speak.

  The elevator stopped at my floor and I got off, leaving him alone in the car. I walked down the hall to my office. Joel and Alec were still downstairs. I sat down at my desk and pulled out a sheet of paper. I wrote the resignation quickly, put it in an envelope, and sent it up to the Chief.

  The ’phone on my desk rang. I picked it up. “Keyes,” I said. I wouldn’t be doing this for long.

  “Mike, this is Marja.”

  “Yes, Marja,” I said wearily.

  “I’m in the Boyd Cocktail Lounge over on Broadway. Can you meet me right away?”

  They had certainly worked fast. Her bail had been set at fifty thousand dollars, and here she was in a bar almost before I had time to get upstairs. I hesitated.

  “Please, Mike,” she said. “It’s very important.”

  “Okay,” I said. “I’ll be right over.” I reached for my coat. I’d come back tomorrow to clean out my desk.

  It had begun to snow when I pushed my way through the door into the dimly-lit interior. She was seated at a table in the corner. I sat down beside her. A waiter came up.

  “What’ll it be?” I asked her.

  “Cassis and soda,” she said.

  “Gin over rocks for me,” I said to him. He went away, and I turned to her. “You’re still drinking that crazy stuff.”

  “I like it,” she said.

  The waiter came back and put the drinks before us.

  I lifted my drink. “Here’s to crime.”

  Her eyes were steady on me. “I won’t drink to that.”

  I made a face.

  “Ross always used to say that,” she said. “I’m superstitious about it.”

  “Got something better?” I asked.

  She nodded.

  “What?” I asked.

  Her eyes looked into mine. “Here’s to us,” she said steadily.

  I could feel the warmth of her reaching out to me. “Good enough,” I said, sipping my drink. I put the glass down and looked at her. “What was it you wanted to see me about?”

  A man came into the restaurant. She glanced at him briefly, then back at me. “About us, Mike,” she said. Her hand moved along the table and rested on mine. “I think it’s about time.”

  I could feel the electricity shooting up my arm from her fingers. I tried to keep my voice calm. “Is it?”

  She nodded slowly. “Nobody else will do for me.”

  I took a deep breath. “It took a long time for you to come to that conclusion.”

  “I’m sorry, Mike,” she said. “I couldn’t help it. I didn’t know any better. I told you that last night. In the car.”

  I needed time to think. The pulses in my temples were pounding. I changed the subject. “Who went your bail?” I asked.

  The door opened and another man came through. Automatically she looked at him briefly, appraisingly, then back at me. “Joker Martin,” she said.

  So that was what he had been doing in the courtroom. Vito had probably come out to get an okay from him on the plea. I had heard that he had almost all the rackets in town sewed up. I didn’t speak.

  She leaned toward me. I could smell the warm perfume of her. “It won’t be long, Mike,” she said. “I’ll be out in a couple of years with good behaviour. Then we can go off someplace and start clean. Nobody will know anything about us.”

  Another man came through the door and her eyes flicked over him, then back at me. Her voice was low and husky. “Are we goin’ to make it, Mike?”

  I took a deep breath. Slowly I began to disengage our fingers. She looked down at my hands, then up at me. Her eyes were suddenly veiled. “What is it, Mike? The gaol sentence?”

  I shook my head. I still didn’t trust myself to speak.

  Her voice was a shade sharper now. “What is it, then? I got a right to know, Mike.”

  “What’s my daughter like, Marja?” My voice seemed to be coming from someone else, not from me.

  A sudden flash of understanding came into her eyes. “So that’s it,” she said.

  I nodded. “That’s it.” I looked down at my hands. I could see the veins on the backs of them pulsing slowly. “I could never keep your child from you the way you did mine from me.”

  “What else could I do, Mike?” she asked. “We were worlds apart then.”

  “What makes you think we’re any closer now?” I said brutally. I looked right into her eyes. “I spent my life waiting for you. I thought there was nothing you could do that I could not condone or find excuses for. But I was wrong. The one thing you never should have done was cheat me of my child.”

  “She’s my child, too, Mike, don’t forget that,” she said quickly. “She’s the only thing in this world that’s mine, really mine. She’s more mine than yours.”

  “That’s what I mean, Marja,” I said, a weariness creeping into me. “She could have been our child. But you were only thinking of yourself. Not of her, not of me. Only that you wanted her.”

  “It’s not too late, Mike. We can still do it over.”

  “No, Marja.” I shook my head. “You can’t turn back the clock. You told me that once yourself. Remember?”

  Her eyes were wide and dark. So much about them was familiar, and yet they seemed almost like the eyes of a stranger. A moment passed. Then her face settled into an inscrutable mask and she slowly got to her feet. Without a word, she walked out into the street.

  Through the glass door I could see her standing in the street, the snow falling like velvet around her. A long black limousine stopped in front of her. A man got out. He took off his dark homburg as he held the door for her. I could see his white hair. It matched the falling snow. He was Joker Martin. He followed her into the car and it moved off slowly.

  I threw the rest of my drink down my throat and got to my feet. I tossed a few bills on the table and started for the door.

  I walked into the court for my last official act. To hear Marja’s sentence.

  I could see her face as she faced the bench. She was pale, but her eyes were calm and unafraid as the judge’s voice rolled down on her.

  “On the first count—procurement for the purposes of prostitution—you hereby are sentenced to imprisonment for an indeterminate term of three to five years and fined five thousand dollars.

  “On the second count—bribing certain public officials—you hereby are sentenced to imprisonment for one year and fined five thousand dollars.

  “On the third count—extortion by oral threats—you hereby are sentenced to imprisonment for one year and fined five hundred dollars.”

  The rustle and hum of conversation rose behind us as the judge finished pronouncing sentence. He rapped his gavel for order. The courtroom became quiet.

  His voice was very low, but it carried to the back of the courtroom. “It has been brought to the attention of this court by the District Attorney that the defendant by her action has indicated a desire to rehabilitate herself in the eyes of society. Therefore, it is the decision of this court to allow the defendant to serve her various terms of imprisonment concurrently.”

  A louder buzz ran through the courtroom. This was a real break. It meant that she wouldn’t have to serve more than two years, with time off for good behaviour. I turned to Alec. “Did you know the Old Man was going to do this?” I asked.

  He shook his head. I looked at Joel. He, too, looked blank. I looked across the room at Marja. She was watching me, her eyes steady and somehow grateful. I wanted to tell her that it was the Chief, and not I, who had arranged it, but there was no way to speak to her.

  Joel fell into step beside me as we left the court. “The Old Man is gettin’ soft,” he said. “How about a drink?”

 
I shook my head and left him at the elevator. As I reached the door to my office, it opened suddenly and the Old Man stood there. In his hand he held an envelope which he waved at me excitedly. “You don’t think I’d accept this, do you?” he yelled.

  I saw that it was my resignation. “Yes, sir,” I said. “I think it’s only right.”

  “Then you’re even more stupid than I thought, Keyes,” he shouted. With a flourishing gesture he tore the letter into shreds and threw them on the floor. He stamped off angrily.

  For a moment I stared down at the floor. The tiny bits of paper were startlingly white on the dusty grey flooring. Then I took off after him. I caught his arm and he turned around. “Thanks, Chief,” I said.

  He nodded testily. “It’s okay, Mike. You didn’t think I would give up a good assistant that easily, did you?”

  I smiled slowly. “Not for me, sir. For Marja.”

  He looked into my eyes and his gaze grew gentle. “Don’t ever forget, Mike,” he said softly, “that the scales of justice must always be tempered with mercy.”

  I stood there silently for a moment. Mercy. It was a big word. The biggest. I wondered if I would ever be man enough to show it.

  Before I could speak, he clapped me on the shoulder. “Go back to your office, lad. There’s someone waiting to see you.”

  He stopped off down the hall and I turned back to my office. I opened the door slowly. There was no one there. The Old Man must be cracking up. I went in and sat down behind my desk. I heard a rustle of clothing from the small couch against the wall behind the door. I looked up.

  A small girl was walking toward me. Her hair was the whitest gold I had ever seen. Her eyes were big and round and blue, and looking into them was like looking into a mirror. They were my eyes. I could feel a tightening in my chest. I couldn’t breathe.

  She stopped in front of my desk and looked at me solemnly. Her eyes were wide and unwinking. “I’m Michelle,” she said. Her voice was young and clear.

  I nodded, unable to speak.

  “Mother said I was to stay with you for a while,” she said.

  I nodded again. I wanted to speak, but I couldn’t.

  “She said you would look after me.” The faintest hint of tears began to creep into those beautiful eyes.