Past Due

by William Lashner

  “No, let him go. Men like Mr. Carl are like the weather. You have no choice but to suffer through them until a strong enough wind comes to blow them away.”

  Curtis tightened his grip. My eyes bulged.

  “Let him go,” said the justice.

  Curtis released me. I landed on two shaky legs and lurched this way and that, trying to catch my breath and my balance, staggering around like a drunken Groucho Marx.

  “You can leave us, Curtis.”

  “But Mr. Justice, he—”

  “It will be fine, Curtis. I think I can handle Mr. Carl myself.”

  Curtis Lobban glared at me for a moment and then spun around and left, heading to some far off room. The justice went back to his paperwork. I collapsed into one of the chairs before his ornate desk and rubbed my neck. It wasn’t long before one of the lines on the phone lit. The justice turned his head to the lit line, then raised his eyes to see that I had seen it too.

  “He’s calling your wife,” I said.

  “Most likely,” he said, just as the white cat leaped atop his desk. “She makes it a practice of being kept informed of my business.”

  “And you’re kept informed of hers?”

  “As much as I care to,” he said, scratching the cat’s back, “which isn’t much. You don’t have an appointment. I don’t see lawyers without appointments.”

  “I came about Rashard Porter,” I said.

  “Porter?” said the justice. “Rashard Porter? I don’t recognize the name.”

  “He’s a client. He was sentenced this afternoon to a year in prison for a crime that warranted probation at worst.”

  “And you’ve come to see me about a case? How wonderfully improper. An ex-parte discussion with a sitting Supreme Court justice about an ongoing criminal case.” The cat curled to sitting on the corner of the desk, the justice went back to his paperwork. “I suppose the Bar Association will have something to say about this.”

  “The DA and the presentencing officer in Mr. Porter’s case all agreed that probation was the proper sentence. He’s a kid with a future. He was accepted into art school. Everything was set until the judge turned around and slammed him with a year.”

  “Then it appears you have grounds for your appeal. But until it reaches my level there is nothing I can do, and now, because of this meeting, I would have to recuse myself in any event. Is that all you came in here for, to ruin your career? Because trust me, Mr. Carl, when the Bar Association gets through with you, it will be ruined.”

  “He was sentenced to a year because I was his lawyer, and because the word is out that I am to get screwed at every turn.”

  “Really? That is troubling—for you. And who put out the word?”

  “Don’t play the ignorant puss with me.”

  “Oh, Mr. Carl. You’ve become paranoid.”

  “Maybe, but that doesn’t mean you’re not out to get me. After our first meeting you chewed out the District Attorney and I got hauled into the DA’s office and had my ass chewed out in turn. And right after that you ordered the sheriff to stop helping my collection action against Derek Manley. Then you had my name incorrectly placed on a bench warrant from Lackawanna County that ended up sending me to jail. And now you unjustly screwed my client, Rashard Porter, to the wall.”

  “I did all this.”

  “Of course you did.” Pause. “Didn’t you?”

  It wasn’t any denial that caused my doubt, it was the evident pain on his face. As I went through the litany of indignities recently heaped upon me by the law, he seemed more and more in agony, as if a kidney stone was starting to move slowly and painfully through his system. And even as he spoke, it was as if the stone continued to move, push, chew its way through.

  “Have you learned anything new about Tommy Greeley’s disappearance?” he said.

  “Worried?”

  “Curious. About a lost friend.”

  “I’ve learned that just before his disappearance he was cheating on his girlfriend.”

  “Cheating on Sylvia?”

  “That’s right. With two different women, both married.”

  “Tommy was ever the dog, wasn’t he?”

  “One was a woman named Chelsea. Her husband, Lonnie, was pretty steamed about it. Did you ever meet him? Lonnie Chambers?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “Owns a motorcycle shop in Queens Village.”

  “Doesn’t ring a bell.”

  “And the other woman he was sleeping with was your wife.”

  The justice winced, but not from shock. He twisted around as if in utter pain, as if the kidney stone was continuing to grind its way. The white cat stood up, stared at me for a moment, then stepped over to rub its cheek on the back of the justice’s neck.

  “Where did you hear that?” the justice said.

  “She told me.”

  “Of course she did.”

  “Are you all right, Mr. Justice?”

  “I think you should go.”

  “My client. Rashard Porter.”

  “Who was the judge?”

  “Wellman.”

  “Common Pleas?”

  “That’s right.”

  “I’ll take a look.”

  “I want more than a look.”

  “We all want more than we can have. Good evening, Mr. Carl.”

  He turned around to face me, grimaced, pushed the cat off his desk even as he dismissed me with a wave. The cat stalked off. I waited for a bit and then stood, walked toward the entrance. But before I reached the door I stopped and turned around.

  “Did you know about Tommy and your wife?”

  “Does it matter?” he said without looking up.

  “Yes, it does.”

  “I don’t intrude on my wife’s affairs.”

  “But maybe they intruded on their own. Lonnie Chambers. He came to you, didn’t he?”

  “I said I didn’t recognize the name.”

  “Then we’ll have to see if he recognizes yours.”

  “Good evening, Mr. Carl.”

  I stayed there for a moment more, watching him try to work. His head was down, his pen was moving, but the pain was still there, the stone was still working its brutal way through his system, and I sensed just then that it had been working its way through his system for many many years.

  “Why do you stay with her?” I said.

  He looked up, puzzled for a moment at the question, and then nodded his head. “You’re not married, are you, Mr. Carl?” he said.

  “No.”

  “Well, then, here’s some advice from an old married man. Don’t ever presume to understand what is happening between a husband and a wife. Nothing in this world appears more transparent, and yet is more inscrutable, than someone else’s marriage.”

  Chapter

  47

  I DIDN’T KNOW I was in a race. If I had known I was in a race I wouldn’t have gone back to the office after my meeting with the justice. I wouldn’t have briefed Beth on what had happened to Rashard. I wouldn’t have called Rashard’s mother to tell her it was all being taken care of, that I had already taken her son’s problem to the highest levels. If I had known time was of the essence I wouldn’t have answered my mail and filled in my time sheets before showing up to ask my question. And that’s all I had, one question, a single question, whose answer I already knew.

  The sign of the Chop Shop consisted primarily of a huge Harley-Davidson logo, with the store’s name in small block letters beneath the great orange shield. It was a storefront on a narrow road in a grimy commercial part of the city just a few blocks south of South Street. By the time I got there it was dark already and the stores on either side of it were closed for the night and the street was empty. I thought I might be too late, that Lonnie might be gone for the night, but through the bars protecting the plate-glass window I could see a dim light.

  I pushed open the door. A cowbell jangled.

  The narrow front of the store was a jumble of parts and access
ories, exhaust pipes, saddlebags, gas tanks, tires, a row of handlebars fastened to the wall. The counter was piled with old engine fittings, loose papers, greasy rags, but it wasn’t the mess that struck me first when I entered, it was the reek, a strong and vile combination of ammonia and gasoline and the sharp acridity of methyl alcohol. It forced me to put a hand over my nose.

  “Lonnie?” I called out. “Yo, Lonnie. You there?”

  No answer.

  I made my way around the counter, through a dark doorway into a large space, lit thinly by a soft glow emanating from the rear. The reek became stronger, like a noisome wall, and I gagged as I moved forward. In the shadows I could see parts of a grease-stained cement floor, cinder-block walls, workbenches, hulking motorcycles in various states of being ripped apart.

  “Lonnie?”

  No answer.

  Beyond was a wide, closed door, which I assumed led to the alleyway in the back, through which the bikes were brought. He might be in the alley, I figured. I carefully made my way around the workshop and headed for the door. The foul stench grew stronger, thick and vile, overpowering, it burned my nose and throat, my eyes. I coughed and thought I heard another.

  “Lonnie?”

  I hurried my pace, tripped over something metal, headed for the alley and fresh air, and then, just as I reached for the door, I tripped over something else.

  I stopped, turned to see what it was.

  “My God.”

  A body, faceup, lying half in–half out of a small office beside the doorway to the alley, a body lit softly by a flicker of blue fire. I reached into the office, felt around for a switch.

  “Oh my God.”

  It was Lonnie, of course it was Lonnie.

  He was lying on the floor, between two workbenches. The benches were filled with beakers and burners and vials set up in the whole mad scientist configuration, flames shooting out here and there, and the smell in that room was murderous. Even as I fought to hold my breath, my skin itched and my eyes burned and the chemical reek was like a living thing fighting to keep me away.

  I leaned over him. He was warm, still. His face was in a snarl, his hands were clenched, a wrench in one of them, and there was a small hole in his forehead. From the thick pool beneath his head I didn’t need to imagine what the back looked like. I turned to the side and threw up.

  And over the brutal sound of my retching I heard something in the shop, a piece of metal spinning across the floor.

  I leaped up, turned back to the shop, saw a shadow flit out of the doorway. I ran toward it. I ran toward it and something jabbed into my thigh and I flipped over. I fell hard onto my shoulder just as something heavy and metallic crashed beside me and a burning ran up my leg.

  I tried to push myself up but I couldn’t, my leg was trapped by a fallen bike. I grabbed the edge of the seat, heaved, yanked my leg free, and started again toward the shadow, banging my hurt shoulder into the door. The pain spun me around and knocked me to my knees.

  I grabbed hold of the doorjamb, pulled myself up, headed again through the dark passageway toward the front.

  All I wanted was a glimpse, I didn’t want to stop him, I was willing to let him go, that fit my style, no heroics, let him go, absolutely, but I wanted a glimpse, I needed a glimpse.

  I lunged for the door and pushed it open and as soon as I did the store behind me exploded.

  Chapter

  48

  THERE IS SOMETHING perversely cheerful about a crime scene in the middle of the night, the pulsating red and blue lights, the great beams of white, the strobes of—aw, the hell with it.

  There was nothing cheerful about what was happening outside the Chop Shop as it burned to the ground along with the two stores on either side of it. The fire trucks came with remarkable speed and the firefighters moved with the calm alacrity of men and women used to holding back the thin yet lethal edge of entropy, but there was not much they could do, what with all the accelerants, both legal and illegal, in Lonnie’s shop feeding the ferocity of the fire. It was Lonnie who had supplied meth to the gang twenty years ago, Lonnie with the wild burning eyes, and I supposed he had gotten back into the business.

  Coughing all the while, I told a fire captain everything of what I had seen inside and he told me I should tell it to the fire investigators. I told the fire investigators everything of what I had seen inside and they told me to tell it again to the uniformed police. I told one of the uniformed police everything of what I had seen inside and she told me to wait for the police detectives to arrive.

  “Get McDeiss,” I said.

  She raised an eyebrow at me.

  “Tell him Victor Carl is the witness. He’ll show.”

  I stood off to the side, my arms tight around my chest, waiting for the detectives. And then at the edge of the crowd I saw her, staring at the scene with wet eyes, her pretty face drained of all emotion except pain. Chelsea. I walked over to her, lifted the yellow tape. When one of the uniforms started giving me a hassle I just stared at him for a moment and he backed off. I brought Chelsea away from the crowd, to a spot where the fire’s heat could still be felt.

  “They said someone was dead,” she said.

  “Yes.”

  “Is it…”

  “Yes,” I said, reaching out and pulling her toward me, holding her as she cried.

  “Damn him,” she said, her tears hitting now the street. “Damn him.”

  “Who?”

  “I told him to stop. I told him it was crazy dangerous. But he missed it. All this talk about the old days. His time in the center of it was coming back to him and he couldn’t help himself. But it’s like Cooper says, the old road always ends in despair.”

  “But it wasn’t just a fire, Chelsea.”

  She pulled away, looked up at me.

  “He was murdered,” I said.

  “No. It can’t be.”

  “I found his body. Before the fire. He was shot.”

  “Stop.”

  “Any idea who?”

  “No.”

  “Any enemies?”

  “No. No.” She turned toward the burning building, watched as the fire succumbed to the torrents of water. “Everyone loved him. He was just a kid. An old kid. He never grew up. But there was something rich about him, as if the current of life moved raw through his body. People felt more alive just being near him.”

  “And he loved you.”

  “Yes.”

  “Always and forever.”

  She bowed her head. “Yes.”

  “It was in his eyes every time he looked at you.”

  “Victor, what am I going to do?”

  “What does Cooper say? He seems to have the answer to everything.”

  “You know what he says, Victor? He says the living go on dying, only the dead will rise unchanged.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “I don’t know, but right now I hope it’s true.”

  Chelsea and I were still standing together some twenty minutes later when Detective McDeiss, wearing his black porkpie hat, ducked beneath the yellow tape, accompanied by our good friend K. Lawrence Slocum. By then the blaze was under control, the crowd had lessened, the street was strewn with water and debris, the air foul with the burning.

  “Everywhere you show up is a party, Carl,” said McDeiss, shaking his head as he scanned the desolation, acting as if I was the root cause of the current tragedy. “We ought to put a bell around your neck.”

  I introduced the detective and Slocum to Chelsea, told them she was the dead man’s ex-wife. McDeiss asked a few questions and then led her to another officer.

  “The detective will take her home after he gets a full statement,” said McDeiss after he returned.

  “Thank you.”

  “I suppose she’ll have to identify him.”

  “I don’t think there’ll be much to identify.”

  “Probably not,” said McDeiss.

  “All right,” said Slocum. “What happened?”

/>   “I’ve told it three times already.”

  “Tell it again,” he said, and so I did, everything from the moment I stepped into the shop until it blew up behind me.

  “You see who it was who was running?” said McDeiss.

  “No. As soon as I opened the door the place exploded and I was kissing pavement. It was all I could do to get to the other side of the street and away from the flames. By the time I remembered to look around there was nothing.”

  “Did you call nine-one-one?”

  “With my cell.”

  Slocum was shaking his head at the ruined buildings, the singed facades of brick, the devoured roofs with just parts of the skeletal structure still poking through.

  “You sure he was shot?” said McDeiss.

  “Pretty sure. I didn’t have time for an autopsy.”

  “Maybe he just was overcome by the fumes and fell. Dangerous thing cooking up crank.”

  “It looked like he was shot.”

  “Any idea of the caliber?”

  “Look, I’m not Charleton Heston, all right. Only thing I know about guns is that when I see one I cringe and say, ‘No, please, don’t shoot.’ ”

  Slocum rubbed his hand with his mouth. “Okay, Carl,” he said. “I’m afraid to ask but I’m going to anyway. Who was he, this Lonnie Chambers?”

  “Twenty years ago,” I said, “he was in Tommy Greeley’s drug ring.”

  Slocum rubbed his mouth again. McDeiss turned around and kicked the curb and then hopped around in pain.

  “Here’s the story,” I said. “Twenty years ago Tommy Greeley was sleeping with Lonnie Chambers’s wife. Lonnie didn’t like that. Lonnie went to Tommy’s girlfriend to tell her about it, but she didn’t react like he had hoped. She had her own issues to deal with. So Lonnie started following Tommy to find who else he might be screwing and he did, yes he did.”

  “Who?” said Slocum.

  “Who do you think?

  “Jesus Christ, Carl. Didn’t we talk about this?”

  “She came to me.”

  “And what about him? Have you been a good boy?”

  “Until today.”

  “Carl.”

  “A client who should be in art school was stepped back into prison as a way for that bastard to get back at me. The client’s a good kid and he’s going to jail just so that bastard can make his point.”