Muscle Memory

by William G. Tapply

A. I don’t know.

  Q. From where might you have received cash or personal checks that would add up to $8,500?

  A. I don’t know. Some people owe me money. Maybe they paid me in cash or personal checks.

  Q. Who owes you money?

  A. Friends. Business acquaintances.

  Q. Can you be specific as to names and amounts and the conditions of these loans you’ve made?

  A. I don’t recall. I help out my friends sometimes, that’s all.

  Q. Okay. Now let’s look at Exhibit 19. What is this where I’m pointing?

  Cooper questioned Mick about several other deposits he had made into his account within the past sixteen months. A couple of them had been made on consecutive days. All were substantial, but none exceeded $10,000. His responses were all the same—he couldn’t remember where they came from, or whether they were cash or personal checks.

  I knew that Cooper was thinking what I was thinking—that banks are obligated to report any cash deposit of $10,000.01 or more to the IRS, and that Mick appeared to have broken up larger amounts than that into separate, smaller deposits.

  Q. These are fairly large amounts of money, Mr. Fallon—$8,500 and $6,000 and $7,500; $5,000; $9,500; $6,500—that’s $43,000—not to remember where any of it came from. Are you sure you can’t help me out here?

  MR. COYNE: My client has answered your questions.

  MS. COOPER: Yes. All right.

  Q. Looking at Exhibit 15, now, Mr. Fallon. What is this here where I’m pointing?

  A. (Witness reviews exhibit.)

  A. It’s a check I wrote, check number 43. It’s for $10,000.

  Q. Would you look through Exhibits 28 through 57 and find the photocopy of check number 43, please?

  A. (Witness reviews exhibits.)

  A. It’s right here. Check 43.

  Q. Who is this check made out to?

  A. Cash. It’s made out to cash.

  Q. Do you remember what you did with this $10,000 in cash?

  A. No. Maybe I owed somebody some money, or—

  MR. COYNE: Just yes or no, Mick.

  A. No. I don’t remember.

  And Barbara Cooper proceeded to question Mick about checks he had written to “cash.” There were nine of them, all large. His answers in all cases were the same: “I don’t remember.”

  Q. That’s, let’s see, that’s $72,500 that you took in cash in the space of a few months, and you don’t remember how you spent it. Is that your testimony?

  A. Yes.

  Q. Now, Mr. Fallon, calling your attention to Exhibit 12 again, which is a copy of your individual tax return for last year, would you please point out to me where on this return you have accounted for the income of $43,000 that you testified came to you as cash or personal checks and that you deposited into your bank account?

  MR. COYNE: I want to go off the record for a minute.

  (Counsel confers with witness.)

  I steered Mick back out into the reception area. The secretary, who was talking on the telephone, looked up, gave us a quick smile, hung up the phone, and left the room.

  “Sit down,” I said to Mick.

  He slumped on the sofa. I stood in front of him.

  “Okay,” I said, “now tell me. Is that forty-three grand accounted for on your tax return?”

  He shook his head.

  “Should it have been?”

  “I don’t know. I guess so.”

  “You testified you couldn’t remember where it came from. Was that the truth?”

  “No. I know where it came from.”

  “And the seventy-two-five you took in cash?”

  “What the fuck is she trying to do to me?”

  “Who?”

  “Kaye, for Christ’s sake. Don’t you see what’s going on?”

  “I think I do,” I said. “Now answer my question.”

  “About the seventy-two-five?”

  “Right.”

  “Yeah, I know what I did with it.”

  “You paid off debts.”

  He nodded.

  “What kind of debts, Mick?”

  He looked up at me, then shrugged. “You know,” he mumbled.

  “Maybe I do,” I said, “but I want you to explain it to me right now. And you better tell me the truth this time, or I’ll fire you. You lied to me before. You said you didn’t cheat on your taxes.”

  “You’re pissed, huh?”

  “I’m embarrassed, Mick.”

  He looked up at me, shrugged, then bent forward with his arms dangling between his legs.

  “Gambling?” I said.

  He nodded.

  “You’re supposed to report what you win gambling.”

  “I figured if I lost more than I won—”

  “It doesn’t work that way. You know that, don’t you?”

  Mick’s eyes refused to meet mine. “Yeah, I guess I do. But, see, I figured—”

  “Don’t lie to your lawyer, Mick. Never again. Understand?”

  “Okay,” he said.

  “Tell me about the gambling, Mick.”

  He let out a long breath. “When Kaye and I got married, she made me promise to quit. I tried, but…”

  “But you can’t help it, right?”

  He nodded. “I’ve always gambled. I was lucky in college and in the pros. I mean, I never bet on my own games, and back then you could get away with it if you were careful. But Kaye knew. She hated it. So I promised her I’d quit.”

  “But you didn’t quit.”

  “I really did try. But I—it’s in my blood. I handled the money in the family, I did all my gambling with cash, I never lost too much more than I won, and I was able to cover it up from Kaye.”

  “Your accountant never questioned you?”

  “Ray? Oh, he just used the figures I gave him. He never said anything.”

  “Do you realize what kind of trouble you could be in?”

  He looked up at me. “I think about it all the time, man. Every time the phone rings or someone knocks on my door, I’m thinking, Uh-oh, the IRS. Here they come.”

  “And you’re still gambling?”

  “Oh, yeah. I need a big hit. I owe ’em big time. I’m in bad shape, man.”

  “Well,” I said, “this explains why Attorney Cooper wanted to depose you.”

  “What, so she could get me arrested for tax evasion?”

  “No. Because she’s protecting her client’s interests.”

  “Kaye doesn’t know about the gambling.”

  “Well, Attorney Cooper has figured it out, Mick. Come on. We’re going back in there.”

  “You mean, I’ve got to tell them about the gambling?”

  “No.”

  MR. COYNE: I’ve advised my client not to answer that last question, or any other questions pertaining to his bank account or his tax return for last year.

  MS. COOPER: What about questions pertaining to his income and expenditures for the period before he and my client separated?

  MR. COYNE: No more questions on those subjects, either.

  MS. COOPER: I don’t have any further questions, then.

  (Whereupon the deposition concluded at 12:45 P.M.)

  Three

  MICK AND I WERE halfway across the parking lot to my car when a soft voice behind us said, “Michael?”

  We both stopped and turned around. Kaye stood on the porch. She was holding her purse in both hands protectively in front of her chest, squinting in the bright sunshine.

  “Hang on a minute,” Mick mumbled to me.

  He walked back and stood on the ground, looking up at Kaye. She came down a couple of steps until their heads were even. She reached out, put her hand on his shoulder, leaned toward him, said something into his ear. He shook his head and glanced back at me.

  I went to my car, climbed behind the wheel, and lit a cigarette. I watched Mick and Kaye through the side window. It appeared that she was doing
all the talking. She kept touching his shoulder and arm, speaking earnestly, ducking down to try to look into his face. He had lowered his chin and was staring down at his feet.

  After a few minutes he looked up at her. She smiled and nodded, and he shook his head. Then she put both hands on his shoulders, leaned forward, and it looked as if she intended to kiss him. But Mick put up his forearm to ward her off, spun around, and started back to the car where I waited for him. His jaw was clenched, and so were his fists.

  Kaye stood there on the porch for a minute, watching Mick. Then she shook her head, turned, and went back into the building.

  Mick slid in beside me. I did not turn on the ignition. We sat there in the parking lot behind Barbara Cooper’s office, both of us gazing out the windshield.

  “You okay?” I said.

  “Oh, sure,” he said.

  “None of my business…”

  “Nothin’,” he said. “Just bullshit. She didn’t say anything.”

  I glanced sideways at him. His eyes were glittery.

  “Be nice if you two can end up friends,” I said.

  “Wouldn’t it, huh?”

  “Look,” I said. “If you want to talk about it…”

  Mick shook his head. “She said the deposition wasn’t her idea. It was that lawyer’s idea, and she went along with it, and now she wished she hadn’t. She said she’d always trusted me, that she didn’t know I’d been gambling, but she wouldn’t’ve wanted to find out that way. She said she was sorry, that she wanted me to be happy, that there was no reason we couldn’t be friends.” He snorted. “Can you believe it? All that crap in there, and I’m supposed to think she wants me to be fucking happy?”

  “It’s divorce, Mick. It’s never happy.”

  “This ain’t over with,” he muttered.

  “Huh?” I said. “What do you mean?”

  He shook his head. “Nothing, man. Forget it.”

  “Leave it to the lawyers, Mick. You hear me?”

  “Sure, I hear you.” He hesitated. “Well, now what? What’s gonna happen?”

  “Now I’ll help you find another lawyer.”

  His head snapped around, and he frowned at me. “What does that mean, another lawyer?”

  “What the hell do you think it means?” I took a deep breath. “It means I quit. I’m done. I don’t want to represent you. Dammit, Mick. You lied to me. You withheld important information from me. You set me up—you set both of us up—to be humiliated in there. You think I’m willing to put up with that?”

  “But I need you, man,” he said. “You can’t do this to me.”

  “You don’t think so?” I said. “Watch me.”

  “You’re pretty mad, huh?”

  I tried to glare fiercely at him, but he wore such a purely innocent, childlike expression of hurt and fear that after a minute, and in spite of myself, I smiled. “Christ, Mick. Yes, I’m mad.”

  “I thought everything was going okay.”

  “Before today it was. Look,” I said, “when they wanted to depose you, you must’ve at least suspected what they were after.”

  “I didn’t think Kaye knew about my…”

  “Problem is the word. Big problem.”

  “Okay. My problem. I didn’t think she knew.”

  “Well,” I said, “maybe she didn’t, but it was all right there in the stuff we turned over to them.” I flicked the cigarette butt out the window. “All you had to do was tell me the truth.” I sighed. “My fault, Mick. I should’ve scrutinized it myself instead of trusting you. All that money you didn’t declare. It would’ve jumped out at me, just like it did at Attorney Cooper.”

  “By then I’d already lied to you,” he said. “I didn’t want to admit it. I—it was important to me, what you thought of me.”

  “Right now, you don’t want to know what I think of you.” I turned the key in the ignition, backed up, and pulled out of the parking lot. “I said I’d buy you a beer,” I said. “And I, for one, am a man of my word.”

  “You said you’d buy me a six-pack.”

  “Don’t push your luck, pal.”

  I headed back to Somerville. Mick slouched in the front seat beside me, jiggling his knee, clenching and unclenching his fists, and staring out the side window, and neither of us spoke until I turned off Mass Ave. in Porter Square, heading toward Mick’s apartment in Somerville.

  “The Union Square Bistro’s got a bar downstairs,” said Mick. “Good food, too, if you feel like eating. It’s right around the corner from my place.”

  “Sounds fine,” I said.

  “You’re not really gonna quit on me, are you?”

  “I should.”

  He reached over and tapped my leg with his fist. “I knew I could count on you. So what happens next?”

  “Damage control,” I said.

  Barbara Cooper waited until the following Tuesday before she called me. “I’ll get right to the point,” she said.

  “I figured you would.”

  She cleared her throat. “You can understand how my client is feeling about now.”

  “And maybe you can imagine how my client is feeling.”

  “Yes, well, some of us end up with stronger cases than others.” She cleared her throat. “My client does not feel confident that your client will be able to meet his obligations for child support and alimony.”

  “He’s always managed to support his family,” I said. “He has adequate income.”

  “He gambles. He loses a lot of money.”

  I didn’t say anything.

  “He’s unreliable, he’s unstable, and he’s angry,” she said. “My client’s afraid of him.”

  “Oh, come off it. Mick might be a very large man, but he’s still in love with his wife.”

  But I understood what she was talking about. In my experience, love and anger are so closely related that sometimes it’s hard to tell which is which. And Mick had revealed his quick temper to Barbara Cooper.

  “I doubt if the court would give your assessment of your client’s temperament much credence,” she said. “And you know Judge Kolb.”

  I did know Judge Elliot Kolb. He had a reputation as a wife’s judge, and he hated domestic violence or abuse of any kind. He’d take one look at Mick Fallon, all six-foot-seven, 280 pounds of him, and then he’d see pretty little blue-eyed Kaye gazing demurely down into her lap, and Judge Kolb would give full credence to any hint that she might fear for her safety.

  “So what exactly are you proposing?” I said.

  “I’m taking this one to court, Mr. Coyne.”

  “Well, that’s—”

  “Understand one thing,” she said.

  “I’m listening.”

  “My client is feeling insecure, and she’s genuinely fearful. She’s not being vindictive.”

  “No,” I said. “She’s got you to handle that part for her.”

  I heard her chuckle. “See you in court, Counselor.”

  It was close to midnight on Monday. I had just crawled into bed and picked up my dog-eared copy of Moby Dick, which has been my bedtime reading off and on for years, when the phone rang. I grabbed it, figuring it was one of my two sons calling collect from another time zone. I hoped it wasn’t bad news.

  Or maybe it was Alex, calling from Maine. That would’ve been good news.

  But it was none of them.

  It was Lieutenant Roger Horowitz. Horowitz was a homicide detective with the state police, and if he was calling me, it had to be bad news.

  “Get dressed, Coyne,” he growled. “We got a situation here.”

  “Situation?”

  “I’m on my way to your place now. Meet me out front. I’ll fill you in.”

  “Wait a minute—”

  But Horowitz had hung up.

  It didn’t take much imagination to figure out that when a homicide cop had a “situation,” it probably involved a homicide.

  I hastily pulled on a pair of jeans, cotton shirt, socks, sneakers, windbreaker. I p
atted my pockets for cigarettes, keys, and wallet, then took the elevator down to the lobby.

  When I stepped out the front door, a state police cruiser was waiting. An arm stuck out the window and waved me over.

  I climbed into the back. Horowitz was in the passenger seat up front and a uniformed state trooper was behind the wheel.

  “Hit it,” said Horowitz to the driver.

  Tires squealed, the siren wailed, and I slammed back against the seat.

  I grabbed the back of Horowitz’s seat and pulled myself forward. “So who murdered whom?” I said.

  “It ain’t that kind of situation,” he said. “At least not yet it ain’t. We got a hostage situation here, and the hostage happens to be a friend of yours.”

  “Yeah, well—”

  “And the guy who’s holding the hostage is one of your clients, okay? And he’s asking for you.”

  “For Christ sake, Horowitz—”

  “Mick Fallon is holding a steak knife at Skeeter O’Reilly’s throat, all right? And he’s saying that unless he can talk to you, he’s gonna cut him. So here I’m giving you a chance to be a hero, do something useful for a change.”

  We swerved around one last corner and screeched to a stop halfway up onto the sidewalk on State Street at the end of Skeeter’s alley. Three or four cruisers had pulled in at odd angles, and they sat there with their doors hanging open, their lights flashing, and their radios blaring static. About a dozen city cops were holding a small crowd of people away from the mouth of the alley. The Channel 7 Mobile Unit was already there, and a redheaded female reporter I thought I recognized was talking to the camera that was perched on the shoulder of a tall, skinny guy wearing dreadlocks.

  Horowitz was already out of the car. He yanked my door open. “Step lively,” he said. “Time is money, Coyne.”

  I climbed out. “You better fill me in.”

  “Not much to fill in. We had a Boston detective track Fallon down to Skeeter’s. He went inside, flashed his shield, said he needed to talk to him, and Fallon picked him up by the scruff of his neck, dragged him to the door, and threw him out into the alley. Then—”

  “Wait a minute,” I said. “This was one detective?”

  Horowitz nodded.

  “And this one detective, he didn’t have a partner with him?”

  “The partner was outside in the car. Says he had a call. They figured this was a routine thing.”