Dutch Uncle hcc-12

by Peter Pavia

  The sun burned yellow outside, but every curtain and blind was shut tight against the day. Leo spilled some coke onto his plate, carved up a juicy fat line, and mowed it down. The sounds coming from the carport turned out to be the central air kicking on, but the upstairs part of the house was making noises, too. He checked the closets and looked under the beds. He searched the carport again, then took a quick peek into the back yard, before he was satisfied that everything was chill.

  The phone rang and he picked it up without thinking. What a mistake.

  “Hey, baby,” Whitney said, “What’s going on over there?”

  “Nothing,” he said. “I’m not feeling too good today.” He downed a shot of Cuervo and tried to get his lie over with a few fake coughs.

  “You don’t sound too good.”

  “No,” Leo said. “Matter of fact, I just took a bunch of stuff and I’m gonna go lay down. Try and sleep this thing off, whatever it is.”

  “Have you got a fever?”

  Leo touched the back of his wrist to his forehead. “A fever,” he said, “yeah, I think I do.”

  “You better be careful it doesn’t turn into something else,” she said. She wanted to know if he’d talked to Homes-Leighton.

  Homes-Leighton had left a bunch of messages, when was it, the day before yesterday, but Leo hadn’t called him back. “I haven’t heard from the guy,” he said.

  She started to thank him for hooking her up with Lawrence. He had gotten her some unpaid extra work on this movie he was shooting. Whitney was hurting his ears.

  “I feel like I’m gonna pass out,” he said. “I’ll call you when I’m feeling better.” He was never going to feel well enough to call Whitney, but whatever.

  He hung up and unplugged the phone. He wasn’t taking any calls today, he wasn’t making any calls, and nobody better show up at his door, that’s all he had to say.

  He had divided another pile into four bumps when it hit him: The dining room was a very dangerous location. The edges of the curtains were framed with light, and if somebody had been looking in, they would’ve seen him with his plate and his straw and his finely chopped powder. The only place that was safe was the upstairs bathroom. Leo climbed the stairs, went in, and locked the door. Stepping into the tub, he pulled the shower door closed. He sucked up two quick lines, then two more. He took his toothbrush and scrubbed that tequila taste out of his mouth until the foam he spit into the sink was speckled with blood. Soon as he could find his car keys, he’d drive to the liquor store, stock up, and get himself set so there’d be no reason, no reason at all, for him to leave the house.

  His mission succeeded, yielding a half-gallon of Cuervo and a carton of Marlboros. But the ride home just about made his heart stop. A white-haired police lady followed him for a two-mile stretch. She was driving an ’89 Grand Marquis, robin’s egg blue, the seat pushed forward as far as it would go, her head just peering over the dashboard and her wrinkled fingers gripping the wheel at the ten o’clock and two o’clock positions, just like they taught in Driver’s Ed, a deep-cover cop they were using to trick him.

  Instead, Leo tricked her. He deliberately drove past his house, making a series of quick turns that got her confused. Losing the old bitch speeding through the back streets, he made a sharp turn into the driveway, and pulled the Jag all the way into the carport.

  He supposed the coast was clear enough to prepare a cocktail, but what Leo could really go for right now was a nice hit off the pipe.

  If he could figure out what he did with his pipe. He remembered hiding it from Whitney. It was under something. The kitchen sink. Behind the Ajax and the Drano and the Formula 409, wrapped in a remnant of a blanket he used to polish the Jag.

  The house was getting dark, but Leo left the lights off. He secured himself in the closet of the spare bedroom. He had all the light he needed, right here in his palm.

  He sparked a dime-sized boulder that almost didn’t fit in the bowl, sucking till the chunk glowed orange and the chamber was trapping a fearsome grey cloud. Smoke boomed into his lungs, right to the top of his throat. His ears crackled with a buzzing, like crickets on a crazy-hot afternoon. He held the hit, and when the buzzing died down, he let it go. Lights blinked. Lights winked and lights flashed at the edge of his peripheral vision.

  The racket that echoed from every corner of the house forced him to investigate. Flashes followed him down the hall — that’s how he knew the lights were strobing inside his head, and not outside of it. Reconnoitering the living room, his back flush with a wall, he raked his shin against an end table. When he got to the kitchen, it went quiet, waiting till he got back upstairs before it started up again.

  He sifted the bag for a tasty rock, but it was getting powdery in there. Selecting three pebbles, he cooked them and held the smoke, listening for that cricket buzz, but this blast was weak, just a hum, and it faded after a few seconds.

  Now there was trouble outside. Big trouble in the form of a cop parked at the curb. The car was the same model as a police cruiser, without the gumballs and the splashy paint job. No tricks this time. The guy looked a lot more like a cop than any white-haired granny or sexy Cuban chick, that was for sure.

  Leo could make out the cop’s profile in the streetlamp glow. High forehead, short cop’s haircut, squared-off jaw a few years from going jowly. He was holding a spray inhaler to his nose, took a blast in one nostril, then the other, just sitting there. Probably waiting for Leo to do something stupid, like flip on the lights, give the cop some kind of sign he was home. He retreated to the spare bedroom and slipped into his closet. He’d wait right here. He dared the cop to try to come in and find him. He dared him.

  He was sure an hour had passed, but it might’ve been more, when he combat-crawled back to the master bedroom. He peeked over the windowsill. Leo had won. The cop was gone. The cop was gone and it was safe to go downstairs.

  A good thing, too, because as Leo headed down the stairs to go switch this powdery bag for the chunky fat one in the freezer, he heard glass breaking. He traced it right away to the sliding door. A tiny crash, then the clink-clink of shards raining down on the linoleum. The definite click of the latch being turned. The heavy door slid a few feet on its track.

  It couldn’t be the cop. This had to be a burglar, somebody thinking he wasn’t home because the house was so dark. Then, rounding the corner from the dining room to the kitchen, it wasn’t dark at all.

  The lights popped on and Leo saw it wasn’t the cops and it wasn’t a burglar, it was that fat little fucker Negrito with some greaseball sidekick. He was taller than Negrito, like that was saying anything, and he was wearing a suit that was tight under the arms. His horrid tie featured diamonds, swirls, and stripes, red, blue and beige against a silver background. He had a gun in his hand and so did Negrito.

  It dawned on Leo that he had made two very serious miscalculations. One, he should have run away from the sound of the breaking glass and not toward it. Two, he should’ve kept the gun he used to shoot Beaumond. He wasn’t looking all that bright right now, up against Negrito and this other spic with the shocking taste in neckwear, no weapon to protect him.

  Leo said, “What the fuck’re you doing?”

  The muzzle flash surprised him. He didn’t think you’d be able to see it in the light.

  Negrito’s shot hit him in the shoulder. It spun him around and it took his legs and he cracked his head against the kitchen table. That hurt. He put his hand to his forehead, feeling for blood, thinking this had turned a lot more serious than it had originally seemed. The second shot went in below his fourth rib, and he wouldn’t swear to it, but he thought he heard a third. Leo Hannah left this world wondering why people always made such a big deal over dying. It was the easiest thing he had ever done.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Harry wanted to meet his brother somewhere far from his office, where the restaurants weren’t jammed with the cheap suits from Grand Street, guys who had two settings, overdrive and dead.
Arthur had been one of those cheap suits in the ’80s, but he’d emerged from the decade a wealthy Healy, his heart still beating and his record unblemished. His wingtips had licked a crazy Fred Astaire on the outskirts of some headline-grabbing scandals, and he’d hustled with guys who did Fed time, but he’d steered clear himself, and the end result was he still had a desk at Salomon while his buddies had to content themselves with lecturing at universities.

  Harry didn’t know exactly what his brother did, and he got further confused when Arthur tried to break it down for him. The bottom line was, if Wall Street was rocking in one direction or the other, Arthur got quoted in newspaper stories, and because he was good at describing the action in terms anybody but Harry could understand, he frequently popped up on cable TV shows like the one Aggie saw him on, holding forth on what it all meant. Arthur in suspenders and one of his monogrammed shirts, amused and giving the impression the subject was serious, but not too serious.

  The restaurant he picked out was known for its sushi. Harry hoped they served something else. He wasn’t too big on raw fish.

  Arthur was blowing out a cloud of cigarette smoke, sitting at the bar and chatting with the bartender. His suit was grey and his shirt was grey, and a burgundy pocket square peeked out of his pocket and matched his tie. He hugged Harry and kissed him on the cheek.

  Harry followed him to a podium, where a guy with coal-black hair was waiting. He nodded at Harry and shook Arthur’s hand, then penciling a line thorough Arthur’s reservation, he said, “Right this way.” Their table was in a corner.

  “Perfect,” Arthur said. He shook the guy’s hand again, this time with a folded bill in his palm.

  Harry said, “I thought you had juice here.”

  “I’ve got juice everywhere.”

  “Then why’d you tighten up the maitre d’? The joint’s deserted.”

  “Yeah, tonight. What about tomorrow,” Arthur said, “or Friday? I get an oil guy in from Texas. His wife reads about Soho in Newsweek, and they mention this restaurant. We show up at eight-thirty, no reservation, we’re looking at a two-hour wait. I explain the situation to my man, and as soon as something’s free, we’re dining. I look like a big man in front of my client and his wife. If it costs me an extra twenty or thirty when I’m here, so what?”

  Harry lit a Marlboro, and he was looking for someplace to put the match. “Why did he seat us in nonsmoking? Don’t you wanna smoke?”

  “I always want to smoke,” Arthur said. “Unfortunately, I can’t do it in the dining room. You’re going to have to turn that off.”

  “You’re kidding,” Harry said.

  “He’s not kidding,” their waitress said. In spite of the tattoo that marred the milky skin on her shoulder, she looked wholesome, with muscular thighs and a high, round ass. She pulled an ashtray out of her apron, and set it on the table. “Sorry.”

  “Not your fault,” Arthur said. “You didn’t vote for that ordinance, did you?”

  “As a matter of fact, they didn’t consult me.”

  Harry huffed a last drag and squelched his smoke.

  “There’s all these, like, draconian social laws,” the waitress said. “Don’t smoke, don’t eat, don’t drink, don’t, don’t, don’t.”

  Arthur said, “Draconian?”

  “That’s right. I said draconian and I meant draconian. I’ve been to college. What are you guys drinking?”

  Arthur asked for a vodka and soda and Harry ordered a beer. He studied his brother. His haircut was flawless. His clothes, immaculate. Personal demeanor, enviable. How could you lose if you were Arthur Healy?

  “This is how you know you’re getting old,” Arthur said. “I’m probably her father’s age, but I’d love to bang her. Take a look at that walk.”

  Harry watched the waitress switch her hips back to the bar.

  “Just like a woman,” Arthur said.

  “Speaking of women, how’s your wife?”

  The waitress brought their drinks. Arthur ordered sushi and a salad. Harry looked through the menu, ordered the Szechuan sirloin. Szechuan. What kind of restaurant was this?

  “The old man told me you ambushed him the other day. He seem okay to you?”

  What was there to say? The old man was the old man. Harry said, “Fine,” and then to change the subject, “How’re the kids doing?”

  “Teenagers,” Arthur said. “They’re a constant worry. Last week, Odette went on her first date where it was just her and the boy. I thought I was going to start crying.”

  “What is she, sixteen? That’s old enough. What was the kid like?”

  “Very tall. Captain of the basketball team.”

  “He doesn’t sound too threatening.”

  “He wasn’t. But when I pulled him aside to slip him a few bucks, I told him, with this big smile on my face, he doesn’t have my little girl back under my roof by midnight, I was gonna set his car on fire.”

  “What time did he get her home?”

  “You think I was watching the clock?” Arthur stopped chewing, arugula and a bit of onion impaled on his fork. “It was eleven twenty-four.”

  Arthur handled his chopsticks like he’d never used a knife or fork, dislodging a fish chunk from its marble pedestal, dipping it into a shallow bowl of soy sauce clotted with atomic green mustard. Harry wondered where he picked up these Asian table manners. Certainly not at home. Arthur was pure self-invention, and this invented self was very pleasing to the world. Harry was more or less self-invented too, except it won him friends like Jimmy De Steffano.

  “How’s that steak?”

  “Very tasty,” Harry said. Which it was. Very tasty. It just didn’t taste very good.

  “How about you?” Arthur said. “How’re you doing?”

  Harry said, “To tell you the truth, Art, I’m in a lot of fucking trouble.”

  The dining room had filled up around them. The waitress hustled to stay on top of her section, people asking for more water and more soy sauce and more cocktails, but when Arthur smiled at her, she stopped in her tracks.

  He ordered a lichee mousse that came in a martini glass, a mint leaf sticking out of the top of it. Harry asked for a double Dewar’s, neat. Maybe he’d get drunk. Then maybe he’d go find Jimmy De Steffano, that shouldn’t be too hard, and give him a beating, just for fun.

  “You understand now,” Arthur was saying, “your first mistake.” A smear of mousse had the nerve to settle on his top lip. He wiped it away, eyes narrowing at the stain on the napkin.

  “Which mistake are you referring to?”

  “The one you made by not calling me.”

  “I thought about it,” Harry said. “I did.”

  “Then why didn’t you do it?”

  “Because I was ashamed.” And he was. Ashamed then, and even more ashamed now.

  Arthur’s hand cut the air. “We retain legal counsel immediately,” he said, more to himself than to Harry. “First thing in the morning, you call me at the office. I get to work early.”

  And that put the matter to rest. No questions regarding guilt or innocence. Arthur had all the details he needed. Decide. Act. Be in charge. Nothing could go wrong as long as he was pulling the strings. He straightened his tie and set his jaw, like asking for the check was the first step of this new challenge and there was no way Arthur Healy was going to fail.

  If Arthur was going to hire an attorney, Connor Merrill was exactly the kind of brand-name mouthpiece he’d come up with. He made his bones in the ’80s, like Arthur, when he demolished a set of RICO beefs the Feds were hanging on two mob bosses. Crooked bureaucrats were fitted for halos under his counsel, and there was a judge still sitting on a bench somewhere in Texas thanks to Connor Merrill.

  Whenever Merrill showed up on TV or in the papers, it was to issue a tight-lipped no comment. After a case was decided, Merrill would read from a single page, a paragraph or two that took thirty seconds, and he didn’t hang around to answer anybody’s questions. Connor Merrill was old school.
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br />   His corner office had views that looked north and east for miles. The 59th Street Bridge looked close enough for Harry to touch, Queens spreading out on the polluted horizon, the hills of Harlem visible up Lexington Avenue.

  Harry was sitting on his leather couch. Merrill was sitting on the chair that made it a set, relaxed and confident in the way that people who have money are relaxed and confident.

  “Do me a favor,” the attorney was saying, “lose the charming low-life routine.”

  He was wearing a navy blue suit, serious and precise. A taut, trim man, Merrill’s eyes were slate grey, and his thin nose was perfectly aligned on his narrow face. His hair was going silver at the temples, but only there, and Harry wondered if the rest of his follicles weren’t receiving some sort of cosmetic assistance.

  “Let’s get back to Leo,” Merrill said.

  “It was like he was waiting for me.”

  “Are you trying to tell me you were framed?”

  “Framed seems too advanced for Leo. But yeah, he set me up.”

  Merrill leaned in, his suit sleeves riding above his ruby cufflinks. “You understand I can’t help you if you’re lying.”

  Harry was stung. “I’m doing the best I can.”

  Merrill got up and walked to his desk. It was uncluttered with snapshots or books. He didn’t use an in-and-out box. The only items taking up space on it were an ink blotter and a telephone. He slid a yellow legal pad out of a drawer.

  “Is there anybody who can corroborate your story?”

  “There’s this chick Vicki, the one who was in Manfred’s room when I went to go pick up the package. She knows he was alive when I left. But she wasn’t there when I got back.”

  “The good news, Mr. Healy, is that the burden of proof is on the state. We don’t have to prove you didn’t do it. They have to prove that you did.”

  Harry got off the leather couch and went to stand by the windows. Merrill seemed far away. “You don’t believe me, do you?”