by Alan Hruska
“We’re all over the tube,” Elena says.
“I’m not a TV watcher. But there was a story, as I recall… two young desperados escaping from some jailhouse in Pennsylvania.”
“That would be us,” Tom says.
“You seem awfully proud of it.”
“It did take some ingenuity on our parts.”
“I doubt that much was required.”
“We’d never done it before,” Elena points out.
“Well, in that case,” Horatio says with a smirk. “So what’s the deal? I’m supposed to hire you under fictitious names, pretend I’ve no idea who you really are, and harbor you as fugitives?”
“No pain, no gain,” Tom notes equably.
“The gain being your probably very short-term services?”
“I’ll do your research, write your papers—briefs, memos, opinion letters, whatever—and Elena, who has a first-class mind, very organized and efficient person, will assist Miss—”
“Mrs.,” Jo says. “Mrs. Downs.”
Tom’s mouth opens and shuts. “Of course. I’m sorry. I should have realized.”
“Why?” says Horatio. “We don’t, half the time.”
“In all events,” Tom says, “we will provide highly motivated service.”
“I dare say you would. And as a lawyer, I assume you know the risk we’d be running.”
“I do.”
“And yet you ask us to take it.”
“I put it out there.”
“Why do the police think you killed her father?”
“We’re being framed. By whoever did kill her father. The same people who kidnapped us.”
Horatio smiles. “You were kidnapped too, were you?”
“You think we made that up?” Tom says.
“Probably not. Too fantastic. You may not be the genius you say you are, but anyone could concoct a better story than that.”
“Good,” Tom says. “Glad you believe it, because it happens to be true. And if you trust that judgment, brings the risk way down.”
“Assuming you escape the frame.”
“No, if we escape the frame, the risk evaporates.”
“Hmm.”
“Meaning you’ll do it?”
“On condition,” Downs says.
“Name it.”
“On my desk is a memo I wrote on interviews with my client, the Ashaway Steel Company. They’re pretty unpopular in this town right now, having folded their tent and moved to Covington. The employees want a class action for wrongful discharge and other such things. Here’s the complaint in the case, our answer, and motion for summary judgment. And here’s my opponents’ answering brief. I need a reply brief two days from now. Have a draft on my desk first thing in the morning. I like it, you’re hired.”
“In one night you want a brief you can file?”
“I was gonna do it before you barged in.”
“Okay. Fair enough. But we’ll need one thing.”
“You want to be paid beforehand?”
“Food money,” Tom says, waving his hand between Elena and himself.
“She eats too?”
“Yeah, the both of us eat,” Elena says.
Horatio snorts. “Here’s fifty bucks. Plenty for two at Gene’s, which is the restaurant on the square.”
“We might be recognized there.”
“Yeah, you might. And you might as well find that out now.”
TWENTY-ONE
In Brooklyn, there are many characterless streets on the outskirts of distinctive neighborhoods. Teddy Stamos now drives on such a road between Fort Greene and Park Slope. It’s inhabited mainly by working-class Arabs. He is tracking a person of such status and descent, who is known as Morrie Khalil, and who, until recently, was the driver for Robbie Riles.
Getting Khalil’s address wasn’t difficult. Lowell Jockery himself once rode in Robbie’s car and recalled the oddity of Robbie’s having an Arab driver with the name of Morrie. The rest was hacking, and Teddy employs the best. The Transportation Department of Riles Whitney & Co. listed a Maurice Khalil.
Parking in Brooklyn, impossible for most, is also easy for Teddy. A no-parking spot across the street from Khalil’s house is perfect. All one needs is what Teddy has: a placard from the New York City Department of Film that allows parking at such spots all over the city.
Teddy climbs the stoop of a two-family dwelling and rings the bell. While waiting, he looks out over the street. Low narrow houses on both sides, clad in aluminum siding or fake brick, minimum or no space between them. Typical outer-borough residential. The sidewalks are treeless and dotted with garbage cans, their overflowing state a ripe reminder of the inequality of city services.
The door is opened by a plump, youngish, attractive woman of Arab ancestry and modern dress. “Yes?”
“How do you do?” Teddy says. “I’m Theodore Sullivan, I work for United States Immigration, and here are my credentials.” He flashes a badge that would have borne inspection had she made it.
“We have no immigration problem,” she says curtly.
“None that I know of, ma’am. I’m looking for your … husband?”
“Yes?”
“Who may have information about someone who does have an immigration problem.”
“Who?”
“I can’t say, ma’am. But that information is very likely to come out in my interview of your husband.”
“He’s not here.”
“Do you happen to know where I might find him?”
“No,” she says and closes the door.
Teddy is not daunted. He does his research, engages surveillance, and rarely wastes time. Which means he would not personally have driven all the way to Brooklyn unless he knew in advance where Khalil spent his time when not working and not at home. So he makes directly for the neighborhood park, which is only a few blocks’ walk. And there, sure enough, is Khalil, waiting on a park bench for a chess game, and just getting off a cell phone conversation, doubtless, Teddy thinks, with his wife. Khalil picks Teddy out immediately and laughs.
Teddy, flashing his badge, sits next to him on the bench. “Your wife mention I was looking for you?”
“She did,” Khalil says, affecting a cool manner. He has the physiognomy for it: large head and enormous beak of a nose tilted insouciantly to one side. And out of livery, he wears jeans.
“So you’re thinking,” Teddy says, “if he knew enough to find me in the park, why didn’t he come here first, thereby eliminating the risk that the wife would sound a warning?”
“I was thinking that, yes.”
“I can always find you, Morrie. This way I learn something additional. Which is whether you have something to hide.”
“Which you would have concluded, if I ran?”
“Exactly.”
“No one loves talking to Immigration. Even people with nothing to hide.”
“Yes,” Teddy says, “but I’m not from Immigration. And you probably expected that as well.”
“So who are you,” Morrie says, “a cop?”
“That’s who you were expecting?”
“Why don’t you just tell me who you are, and what you want?”
“Someone who can do you a good turn.”
“Someone who likes to play games, that I can see.”
“I’m not, actually, such a person, nor of course a cop. But I am truly someone in a position to enrich your life.”
“Oh yes?” Morrie says. “To the tune of say, what?”
“Patience.”
“I do nothing illegal.”
“Be calm,” Teddy says. “I’m a private investigator. What I’m here to propose is perfectly lawful. Indeed, all I want you to do is your duty as a citizen.”
“I am a citizen.”
“I know that.”
“And now my patience is gone.”
“This involves possible testimony.”
“Yes?” Morrie says. “Ha!”
“You have a problem wit
h that?”
“What happened happened.”
“So you know what this is about?”
“Of course I know. I was Mr. Riles’s driver. He was murdered. Private investigators do not otherwise arrive on my doorstep.”
“You seem like an intelligent man.”
“Of course I’m an intelligent man. You think I could have driven for Mr. Riles for ten years if I wasn’t?”
“Was it that long?”
“I expect you know exactly how long it was.”
“And you’re now driving for Mr. Althus?”
“Okay,” Khalil says. “Let us stop. Who are you working for? Why do I have to tell you anything?”
“You don’t. That’s the beautiful thing about this. I’m not trying to force you to do anything. I simply want to give you a large amount of cash on two conditions. One, that you tell me the story of that night, the night Mr. Riles was killed, and two, that your memory of that night happens to help my client.”
“Who is?”
“That, of course, is the one thing I can’t tell you.”
“How ’bout your real name?”
“Yes, that I can tell you. I’m Theodore Stamos, head of the agency bearing that name, which you might have heard of.” Khalil shakes his head.
“Well in this age, you can learn all you need know about me at your keyboard. Which is that I’m a perfectly reputable individual, running a highly prestigious agency.”
“How much money?”
“Depends on the value of what you have, Morrie.”
“So what’s the minimum?”
“If you have anything usable at all, ten thousand dollars.”
“And if I tell you the facts and you can’t use it—still, I’ve given you information. I’ve given you my time. There ought to be some money for that.”
“Let’s say, then, a hundred dollars.”
Khalil scoffs. “A hundred dollars. I’d make more than that in a game here.”
“Two-fifty, then. Just for your time. And the jackpot? If we put you on the stand—if the stuff’s good enough to use in court? Fifty thousand dollars. You could use that?”
“How can I trust you?”
“I’ll trust you,” says Teddy, taking out his wallet. He quickly fishes out two one hundred dollar bills and a fifty. “Earnest money,” he says. “Now can we get started?”
“Not here,” Morrie says.
“What’s wrong with here?”
“Just come, man. You ask too many unnecessary questions.”
TWENTY-TWO
The sole waitress, who declares her name to be Nancy, stands poised with a pad to allot Tom and Elena a very few seconds before dealing with demands in the rest of the room. She’s a woman near fifty, built in two distinct halves: the top meager and flat, the bottom lavish and protuberant. “Stew’s good,” she says. “It’s lamb. Made fresh today.”
“I’ll have it,” says Tom, “with the vegetable soup.”
“And the little woman?”
“I beg your pardon,” says Elena with incipient outrage.
Tom intervenes. “My wife’ll have the stew also.”
Nancy swivels and leaves, shouting their order in the direction of the kitchen.
“My what?” Elena cries indignantly. “My wife?”
“Safer,” says Tom.
“I’m not doing it! The hell with that!”
“Listen to me—”
Nancy returns. “Hot rolls? They’re real good.”
“Sure,” Tom says.
“Say,” she begins, “you guys just passing through?”
“No, we’re working for Horatio. Just started.”
“Hey, that’s great! New couple in town.”
She’s off again.
Tom says, “See? New couple. That’s natural. Two young singles who aren’t a couple? What the hell they doing in a town like this?” Tom pauses to grab one of the rolls Nancy left in a basket on their table. “Can’t say we’re just passing through. We’re likely to eat here every day.”
“Married,” Elena says with disdain.
“I’m sure you could do a lot better.”
She makes a show of looking him over. “You’re not completely hideous.”
“Just marginally.”
“Stop fishing,” she says. “I hate stew.”
“Look around you.”
She does. Stew guzzling at every table.
“Eat what the natives eat?” she says.
“Always best.”
“So,” Elena sighs, “where we sleeping tonight?”
“Horatio’s got a sofa,” he says.
“Okay,” she says. “So where you sleeping?”
“Don’t think sleeping’s on my agenda tonight.”
“You’re writing the brief,” she says.
“Kind of a life-or-death project, don’t you think?”
“So how do I help?”
“By being very, very quiet.”
“That’s easy then,” she says. “I’ll be sleeping.”
“That’s why I asked you to be quiet.”
“What?” she says.
“Never mind.”
“What are you saying, I snore?”
“I haven’t said a thing.”
“What? So you’re saying that I snore? I don’t snore!” she says defensively.
“Only a bit.”
“You’re lying!”
“If it pleases you to think so.”
“You’re fucking lying!”
“I guess your boyfriends never mentioned this?”
“There’s nothing to mention!”
Nancy plunks down the two bowls of stew. “Bet you two’re newlies, right? But you fight like old marrieds.” With a chuckle and a wink, she leaves.
“You see,” Tom says. “You got a con going, you gotta sell it.”
TWENTY-THREE
Mrs. Khalil opens the door. “You bring him back here?” she exclaims to her husband.
Morrie leads Teddy inside. “Better than out in the open.”
“People could see you bring him back here!” She lowers her voice. “They could be watching.”
“Then it doesn’t matter where I bring him, does it. And don’t be so paranoid.”
They are standing at the end of a small living room, and Khalil nudges the short man toward a small sofa with large tufted cushions. Teddy sits, Khalil nods, and Mrs. Khalil leaves the room.
Morrie says, “You want me to talk? I have to be sure. It’s not that I have anything to say that’s incriminating, but words on a tape or a disk, who knows how they can be scrambled.”
“So you’re worried, what—I’m wired?”
Morrie shrugs.
“So, fine,” Teddy says, getting to his feet. “Frisk me.”
“Not good enough.”
“Really? Not good enough? Whaddya want?” Teddy says. He makes a deprecating sound. “A strip search?”
“That’s right.”
“You gotta be kidding.”
“I’m not kidding. That’s the deal.”
“What are you, a fag?”
Khalil rolls his eyes. “I look like a fag to you?”
“Well, then you’re out of your mind. I’m not going to do it.”
Khalil sits, on a chair facing the sofa, and Teddy descends once more into the cushions.
Morrie says, “I know what you want, Mr. Theodore Stamos. Only one thing it could be. I’m not an ignorant man. I know about takeovers. I know how they’re won.”
“Oh, yes?” Teddy says. “And how’s that?”
“Smears? Very common.”
“And you think that’s what I want?”
Another shrug from Khalil.
“I want the truth,” Teddy says.
“Naturally.”
They stare at each other.
“All right,” Teddy says, with an expression of disgust. “Where do we do this?”
Morrie says, “You go into the bathroom. Take off all your clot
hes. Then hand them out. I check them over. Then come in and I check you over.”
“Jesus!”
“Up to you.”
“I said, all right. Let’s get it over with.”
“You are willing to do this?”
Huge sigh from Teddy. “Yes, that’s what I said, let’s do it.”
“Then forget it.”
“Whaddya mean?”
“If you’re willing to do it, why waste the time.”
Teddy laughs with relief. “You pulling my chain?”
“A simple test.”
“I’m getting to like you,” Teddy says.
“Let’s get back to the money.”
“I told you about the money.”
“Did you, now?”
“You don’t recall?”
“I do. That is the problem.” Khalil sits back. “The night Mr. Riles was shot,” he says, “the car wasn’t there for him. You know why?”
“Of course, I was going to ask you that.”
“And I know what you want me to say. You want people to believe that Mr. Althus had something to do with the car not showing up. And maybe Miss Elena. Maybe the both of them together.”
Teddy blinks twice. “Who are you?”
“So how much would that be worth? Testimony like that?”
“If it’s truthful, possibly a lot.”
“I’d like you to mention a number.”
“I mentioned fifty thousand.”
Morrie laughs derisively. “I remember numbers. Even ones that small.”
Teddy says, “Then I’ll have to get back to you on this.”
“Yes, get back to me. But I’ll give you my number. My number is nine hundred ninety thousand dollars. You get back to me on that.”
A cloud descends on Teddy’s face. “Then I really need to know what you’ll say.”
“Not really, you don’t. Not the words. Not now. I’ll give you this. I know Miss Elena talks with Mr. Althus. I know, based on what Mr. Althus said on the phone and directly to me, why the car wasn’t there for Mr. Riles. So, a bank check for the figure I gave you, you get everything. All the words you need. When the numbers are right, my memory for words can be easily refreshed. For the person making good on the numbers.”
TWENTY-FOUR
Elena turns over on Horatio’s hard office sofa. “This gonna take all night?”