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Past Due

Page 11

by William Lashner


  “So what was your pay?”

  “I think the most it went up to was like six an hour.”

  “And when did you become the owner?”

  “A few years later. Penza was getting old, his daughter wanted nothing to do with the business. He was looking to get out.”

  “And so you got in?”

  “Yeah, imagine that. Like Horace the Algerian, it was.”

  “Horatio Alger?”

  “Who?”

  “How much did you pay for the business?”

  “Not much, really. It wasn’t worth much, the trucks was old, the accounts was small. He almost gave it away.”

  “Fifty thousand dollars.”

  “What?”

  “Mr. Penza is living in Boca. He said he sold the company to you for fifty thousand dollars. Ten thousand down, the rest on a note.”

  “How is the old guy?”

  “Tanned.”

  John Sebastian piped up, “Is this relevant?”

  “Are you instructing him not to answer?” I said, my voice exploding in finely aged indignation. Sebastian’s head snapped back with such force that I wondered if it was my breath. “Because if you are, I’ll call the judge right now. I’ll get on the phone right now. I’m entitled to ask this.”

  “You don’t have to go ballistic on me.”

  “I’m entitled to ask this.”

  “ ‘Do You Believe in Magic?’ ” said Beth.

  “Excuse me?” said Sebastian.

  “So the question I have, Mr. Manley,” I said, having set Manley’s lawyer back on his heels, “the question you need to answer here, is where did you get hold of the ten-thousand-dollar down payment you paid Mr. Penza?”

  “I don’t know. I saved up.”

  “On six dollars an hour?”

  “Time and a half for overtime. And I was living at home.”

  “But you weren’t a monk?”

  “I had some times, sure.”

  “And some girls?”

  “What, are you kidding me?”

  “I heard that your girlfriend at the time, who later became your first wife, was expensive. She liked nice clothes, jewelry.”

  “Who told you that?”

  “She did. I assume the bulk of the six an hour went to her.”

  “Whatever you assume, you ain’t assuming the half of it.”

  “So from where did the ten thousand come?”

  “I don’t know. I did a guy a favor, maybe.”

  “Who?”

  “Just a guy what I knew.”

  “Give me a name.”

  “I don’t remember his name right off.”

  “What kind of favor did you do for this friend?”

  “Nothing. I don’t know. Let’s forget about it.”

  “Where was this favor done?”

  “I told you to forget about it.”

  “I want to show you a picture. Let’s mark this as plaintiff’s nine for identification. It’s a photograph of three young boys, altar boys. Do you recognize the boy in the middle?”

  “Is that me?”

  “How old were you there?”

  “Truth be told, I can’t ever remember being that young.”

  “Who’s the boy on the left?”

  “It was a long time ago.”

  “It’s Joey Parma, Joey Cheaps, isn’t it?”

  “Where’d you get this?”

  “And it was Joey Parma with you that night at the waterfront?”

  “What night?”

  “The night with the moon shining overhead. The night where the two of you waited in the shadows to do that favor for your friend.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “Who was the friend who asked for the favor?”

  “I told you I don’t remember.” He lifted the pitcher, poured a shaky stream of water into a plastic cup, took a sip. “Is it getting hot in here?”

  “You and Joey Cheaps, with a baseball bat, waiting in the shadows.”

  “Never happened.”

  “For the guy with the suitcase.”

  Manley’s head tilted down, his eyes turned hard beneath his brow, his voice lowered into a growl. “Watch yourself, Victor.”

  “The baseball bat and the guy with the suitcase who was hit in the face and then the splash. Do you remember the splash?”

  “Shut the fuck up.” Manley stood, threw his plastic water cup at my face. Lucky me, the water landed mostly on my tie. Isn’t polyester a wonderful thing?

  “This deposition is over,” said John Sebastian.

  “That’s what you and Joey discussed on the phone the morning before he died, isn’t it?” I said. “What you did together that night at the waterfront?”

  “Are you deaf,” said John Sebastian, standing himself now. “It’s over.”

  “What did you do with the suitcase, Derek?” I said. “What happened to the money in the suitcase?”

  Derek Manley, his face crimson, his nose fluorescent with rage, leaned over and jabbed his finger at my face. “You don’t know shit about what happened.”

  “And what did you do twenty years later to Joseph Parma?”

  “Yo,” he shouted. “I didn’t have nothing to do with whacking Joey. He was my friend.”

  Sebastian put his hand on Manley’s shoulder as if to comfort. “Don’t say anything more, Derek.”

  “On the advice of counsel I’m shutting up for good. But let me give you some advice, Victor. You like your bowels? You find it convenient having them sitting there between your mouth and your asshole?”

  “Let’s go, Derek,” said his lawyer, the hand on the shoulder now pushing him out.

  “You shut up about what it is yous asking about or I’m gonna reach down your throat, pull out them bowels, toss them against the wall so they stick, you understand, you little pissant? You don’t watch out you’ll be shitting out your ear. Don’t think I won’t.”

  “This was totally inappropriate,” said Sebastian after Manley had stormed out of the room. “The judge will hear about this and so will the Bar Association.”

  “Don’t leave, John,” I said, as he made his exit too. “There are still Danish left.”

  “They seemed to have marched off in a huff,” said Beth.

  “What does that mean anyway, ‘in a huff’? A huff. It sounds like one of those short fur jackets.”

  “Is that what you wanted?” she asked.

  “Close enough,” I said. And it was. Manley had as good as admitted to being there that night with Joey Cheaps when the bat had slammed into Tommy Greeley’s face. And he had as good as admitted that he had been there on the behest of a friend. It was the friend’s name I needed; all I’d have to do was squeeze a bit to get it. It wouldn’t be so hard. I was a lawyer, my entire professional training was in the art of the squeeze.

  And it wouldn’t end with Manley. I fully expected word would get out about what I was looking for; I fully expected someone other than Manley would start to feel the pressure. I just didn’t expect it to happen so fast.

  Chapter

  18

  I HAD A date the very night of my deposition of Derek Manley with Dr. Mayonnaise of the serious mien and the pretty blue eyes. She was everything I was supposed to want in a companion, the moral and financial rock upon which I could securely anchor my flailing existence. And she was a doctor, a doctor to bring home to my Jewish mother, if I had one to whom I still talked and who gave a damn about more than her next drink. So I decided that I would work at this one, that I’d see if I could build, with the good doctor, something akin to a healthy relationship. It was not something I was good at, building healthy relationships, but I was determined to give it the old community college try.

  We met at my favorite restaurant in Chinatown, with its barbecued mallards hanging in a row at the entrance, and everything should have been right with the world. Yet, as I pawed with my chopsticks at the tofu stir-fry, tofu because Karen, which I discovered to my utter d
elight, was a vegetarian and we were sharing, I found myself scheming of ways to get the hell out of there.

  Maybe I was simply a coward. Yes, I was afraid of committing myself to a healthy relationship, whatever that was, and yes, I was intimidated by anyone with a richer past and a brighter future than my own, which included most of the known world and certainly included a doctor, and yes, I was paralyzingly afraid of earnestness and sincerity. I was a coward, that was undeniable, but maybe what really got to me was the sight of the heaping platters of duck and beef and chicken and shrimp passing by our table as I pawed at the tofu. This is what I have learned of life from eating in Chinese restaurants: The meal that would make me most perfectly happy is always being served at the table next to mine.

  “After dinner,” said Karen slowly, seriously, as if making a statement of great portent, “let’s say we go back to my place.”

  I punched my chest as a soft piece of soy curd caught in my throat. “Excuse me?”

  “I want you to meet my little family.”

  Her family? Back at the apartment? Waiting to meet me? “Don’t you think it’s a bit premature?”

  “I don’t hide anything from them. They saw me getting ready to go out, they’ve been wondering where I’ve been.”

  “You live with them?”

  “Of course.”

  “They came from Ohio to live with you?”

  “Why wouldn’t they. I’m sure they’ll like you, and, if they approve, we can all cuddle together.”

  I stared at her and the furrow between my eyebrows must have canyoned out because she said, her voice ever serious, “Victor, I’m talking about my cats.”

  She had four of them, and they swirled around her like she was a great piece of catnip and she spoke to them like they were cute little babies. I forced a wide smile onto my face as she told me their names, their idiosyncrasies, the adorable things they did. I sneezed when one of the little critters hopped on my lap and when Karen offered to show me her photos I sneezed again. Later, as I tried to wile my way out of there, she held one close to her face and snuggled while making big baby eyes at me and I wondered if maybe the Chinese didn’t have it right after all.

  I was walking home from Karen’s apartment in the art museum area, heading south along a deserted commercial stretch on Twenty-third, beneath the Kennedy Boulevard overpass, when I spotted the car, long and black, following me slowly; about fifty yards behind but matching my pace. I sped up my step: the car sped up too. I began to sprint, looking behind as the car gained on me, and turned my head just as I ran smack into a broad expanse of bright green broadcloth.

  I bounced off an elbow to the ribs and fell back, threw out my arms to protect myself, jammed my wrist hard as I hit the pavement. I looked up at a big piece of beef in the green sport coat, his jaw huge, his nose pinched, his short black hair sticking up from his head as if repelled by the dim but violent thoughts careening around his cranium. I knew this guy and he knew me.

  “How are you doing there, Leo?” I said.

  Leo leaned down and flicked my forehead.

  I let out an “Ow.”

  “You going somewhere, Victor?” he said.

  “Home?”

  “You asking or telling.”

  “Telling?”

  “Then say it like you mean it.”

  “I’m going home.”

  “Good. We’ll give you a ride.”

  “That’s not really necessary, Leo,” I said. “I can walk, but thanks, awfully, for the offer. It’s been a real treat seeing you again. And congratulations on your win at Augusta. The jacket looks marvelous.”

  A long black Lincoln slid beside me, the back door opened. A voice came out of the back of the car, a soft voice with the slightest lisp. “Shut your mouth, Victor, and get in.”

  I couldn’t see a face in the gloomy interior of the car, but I didn’t need to. “You didn’t waste any time,” I said.

  Leo, in the Masters’ jacket, grabbed my shoulder, hoisted me off the sidewalk, shoveled me into the car, where I ended face-to-face with Earl Dante.

  A few years back I had found myself in the middle of a war for alleged control of the alleged mob. It was all very medieval and unpleasant but I survived, which, believe me, was no sure thing. The winner of the alleged war was a pawnbroker with a shop on Two Street, the Seventh Circle Pawn, the very shop where twenty years before Joey Cheaps had pawned a stolen watch. The broker was a black-suited figure of the macabre, with a sharp dark face and small white teeth. It was the kind of face you expect to see when the door opens after that final elevator ride takes you down down down and the smell of sulfur fills your soul. The door opens and the man with that face and those teeth smiles darkly and says, “How grand that you’ve come. We’ve been expecting you for ages. Right this way, please. And don’t forget your baggage.”

  Earl Dante.

  “I thought I cleaned you off the bottom of my boot, Victor, but here we are again,” said Earl Dante as we cruised slowly south in his big black car. Leo was in the front passenger seat. A short pencil-necked man with a long, sharp nose was driving. “I am not happy with your lawsuit against Derek Manley. I am not happy with what happened today in your office. I am not happy to see Derek Manley in a state that can only be described as apoplectic. I am not happy.”

  “They have pills for that now.”

  “Shut up. This is not a dialogue. Derek Manley and I are partners of a sort. He owes me money that he cannot possibly repay. As a result he performs favors for me. How valuable it is for a man who sends his trucks to department stores all over the northeast to owe me favors is impossible to overstate.”

  “I am collecting a valid debt.”

  “I don’t care about your valid debt. But tell me this. Who is behind the debt? Who is behind the questions?”

  “It’s confidential.”

  “Give me the name.”

  “I can’t. Professional ethics.”

  “Ever the comedian, aren’t you? Jacopo. You know what Jacopo means in Italian? It means fool. Or it means dead man. It all depends on the intonation. This thing that happened twenty years ago, this thing you brought up today, I want to hear no more about it. Nothing, do you understand? It is not your business.”

  “Joey Parma was a client.”

  “Yes. Poor Joey. It was a shame what happened, a crime.”

  “Twenty years ago he pawned a watch at your shop.”

  “I remember.”

  “I had no doubt but you did. Twenty years ago he pawned a watch and twenty years later, because of how he got that watch, he was killed. I’m going to find out why. He was a client. I have an obligation.”

  “You make me weep with your obligations.”

  “Do you know his mother?”

  “Her veal Milanese is extraordinary.”

  “I represent her. I’m going to sue the hell out of whoever it was who killed him.”

  “A jealous husband, I heard.”

  “Is that what you heard?”

  “Or maybe I heard something else. But you have a different theory, is that it? You think it was Derek Manley behind it?”

  “I’m just asking questions.”

  “Let me say this about your questions, Victor. Derek Manley doesn’t piss unless I tell him to unzip, understand? Derek Manley asks my permission each time he gives his girlfriend the pump, understand? May I ejaculate on her tits, Mr. Dante? No, Derek, not today. Then I won’t, Mr. Dante, thank you for your guidance, Mr. Dante. That’s the way it is between Derek Manley and myself. Derek Manley didn’t take out Joey Parma because he didn’t ask me first. Mr. Raffaello kept the peace by controlling the violence. It is a lesson I have taken to heart.”

  “How is the old man these days.”

  “He’s painting. Seascapes and flowers. Awful things.”

  “And how’s it going for you, Earl, how does power taste?”

  “Pretty damn good. Like a perfectly grilled sirloin, charred on the outside, raw and bloody o
n the inside.”

  “You should try tofu. It’s good for the heart.”

  “Do you understand what we discussed here? Are we finished with this nonsense?”

  “It’s not that simple.”

  “Oh yes, it is, Victor. Yes, it is. What happened to Joey Parma is a matter for the police only. What happened twenty years ago is of no concern of yours. Derek Manley’s trucking company is to be left alone. What could be simpler?”

  “There is a debt. I need to collect something.”

  “What do you want?”

  “He owns cars. Can I take his cars, at least?”

  Dante sucked his teeth for a moment and then shrugged. “Knock yourself out.”

  “Thank you.”

  “Do you know how a zero coupon bond works, Victor? The interest on a debt isn’t paid out yearly, it accumulates, accumulates, grows ever larger until the note becomes due.”

  “This financial message brought to you by…”

  “Joseph never reclaimed that watch. I still have it. I consider the pawn price an investment. What happened twenty years ago is a tragedy for some, but for me it is a zero coupon bond. Don’t get in the way of my payout, Victor. Gerald, stop here. Victor will walk the rest of the way home.”

  The car stopped, Leo jumped out, my door opened, Leo’s hand alighted on my lapel. I don’t know if I stepped out or he pulled me out, but I was out.

  “Before you go, Victor,” said Dante, from inside the car, “tell me one thing. Here we were, sitting in a long black car, dividing up another man’s life—you take the cars, I take the business—carving him up like a roasted goose. So this is what I want to know. How did it taste?”

  Back in my apartment, I stripped off my clothes and turned the shower on as hot as I could bear it and I let out a yelp as the water flayed my skin and brought the blood to the surface. I rubbed my sore ribs, my sore wrist. I tried to think it through.

  As soon as Derek Manley mentioned Dante’s name at the deposition I knew Dante would be around for a chat. And funny thing, I believed him about Manley having to ask permission before he unzipped his fly. So Manley hadn’t been behind Joey Cheap’s death. Then who was? And what was that financial lecture on zero coupon bonds all about?

 

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