CHAPTER EIGHT
TERESA
Well, that went badly.
An insufficient answer, then ten miles of freighted silence past the malls and mini-malls and industrial parks that surrounded Capital City like a commercial moat. She wondered if there was such a thing as unfreighted silence, and how it differed from freighted silence. That was how the mind worked when two people were trapped in a car unwilling to speak to each other. One additional word and the nascent partnership of Kean & Cline would have vaporized. Could have vaporized. Might have vaporized. Perhaps. Possibly. So. Concentrate. Think good thoughts. Teresa counted the grain elevators rising in the night distance. A sudden unwanted image elbowed its way into her consciousness. The grain elevators reminded her of Jack Broderick’s last hard-on. A prostaglandin E-1 event. That was an area of concentration she did not need. Her last sexual adventure. How long now? Stop counting, she warned herself. Celibacy was the operative ticket post-prostaglandin. She would give up sex as she used to give up peanut butter for Lent. Except she had never liked peanut butter. She had looked up prostaglandin E-1 in the Physicians’ Desk Reference she kept in the small office adjacent to her bedroom. Next to the Merck Manual. Teresa Kean, she thought, prepared for any medical emergency. Except for a postmortem erection. Prostaglandin E-1. Warnings. Precautions. There were no indicators that the carnal interaction the prostaglandin E-1 was supposed to facilitate would lead to myocardial infarction. She implored a higher power. Please, get me off this subject. She looked over at Max. He was peering out at the highway as if it were an unmarked, unpaved road in a strange foreign land where he did not speak the language—Urdu, say, or Farsi— or understand the local alphabet. Driving required all of his attention. Teresa craved a cigarette. God, for ten years she had not smoked, and now she wanted a butt stop. Wal-Mart. Food Treasure. A carton of Salem Lights. Easy on the throat. How to occupy the mind rather than converse with Max.
“We’ll talk,” Max said suddenly.
The SUV had pulled up to the main entrance of the Rhino Carlton-Plaza. She had not even processed the trip through town. What she had noticed was that Max kept both hands on the steering wheel and did not make a move toward opening the door. She also noticed that the door-man who swung it open had a rhino emblem on his peaked hat. She wondered if when the case got before a judge she should wear a rhino emblem on her court clothes. She assumed everyone else would be wearing one.
“Tomorrow.”
“Good night, Teresa.”
“Good night, Max.”
Teresa leaned back against the pillows. Plastic. Not feather. Housekeeping had said there were no feather pillows. If there were no feather pillows, she doubted that room service could rustle up a bowl of iced and thinly sliced cucumbers. Something to put on her eyes that would ease out the markings of age she so acutely felt. Forget avocado slices, her usual protection against the plague of time. Avocado was a rare delicacy in Cap City.
The telephone rang.
Twelve-ten. It had to be Max. Only he would call at this time of night. “Teri—”
“Who?”
“Teri Kean.” Whoever was calling pronounced it Keen, not Kane as in Citizen Kane.
“Teresa Kean.”
“Of course. Who’d you think I was calling. My girl never makes a mistake. A whiz with numbers. She can track anyone down. Doesn’t matter where the location is, she’ll find you. Right off the top of her head she can get Marlon. Tom. Julia. Beepers. Cell phones. She got Ridley once in Rabat. Rabat, for Christ’s sake. That’s in Algeria.”
“Morocco.”
“Morocco. Tunisia. Who cares. They’re all the same. Sand-nigger countries, excuse my southern, you didn’t hear that. The point is she tracked him down. Nine-hour time difference, he was setting up a five-camera shot, twenty-five hundred extras, beautiful downtown Rabat, he’s losing the light, she gets his beeper number, he takes my call, everyone takes my call. Teri Kean. You take my call right. In wherever the fuck you are, Kansas City . . .”
“Capital City.”
“You’re better off in Rabat.”
“Do you know what time it is?”
“Ten o’clock.”
“It’s after midnight.”
“Not in L.A., it’s not.”
“Who is this?”
“Marty. Marty Magnin.”
“Who?”
“A Martin Magnin Production. You heard of that, right?”
“No.”
“Jesus. A kidder. Kansas City. The city of kidders.”
“Mr. Magnin, I’m going to hang up now.”
“Wait. You got the flowers, right?”
So he was the one responsible for the gangster-funeral mountain of white flowers that covered every flat table surface in the room. Tulips. Casablanca lilies. Freesia. White lilacs. A bouquet of white roses on her pillow rather than the nighttime chocolate. She had to put some vases on the floor so she could see the mirror to cream her face. The card had simply said Marty. In her exhausted state after the endless day in Regent and the tense ride back with Max, she had assumed Marty Buick. But Marty would never have been so vulgar. A perfect Phalaenopsis was more Marty’s style. Three hundred dollars for two sprays. Those flowers. They reminded her of death. Pellugio’s on Sullivan Street. That’s twice in one night Pellugio’s came up. Six Generations. A Hundred Years in the Community. Family Owned. Family Focused. Serving All Faiths. As long as the deceased was Catholic and Italian. Pre-Need Planning. A sound feature, her father once said. Since most of its clients expected to get whacked. There was something reassuring about Pellugio’s. Again something her father had said. They do it right. There was always someone at the rosary talking about what should have been done to Marlon Brando in On the Waterfront. They shoulda thrown that fucking snitch off the fucking roof of his fucking apartment is what they shoulda did. Naw, an ice pick in his eye is what they shoulda did. A hot poker up his ass like they did to one of them English kings, I saw it on A&E when I was inna can. They got cable inna can now? Ogdensburg. Minimum security. You can fucking order in almost. You tried this fucking cannoli? Every mourner at a Pellugio interment received a loaf of Pupella Pellugio’s homemade lard bread, as well as a baseball cap that said PELLUGIO’S—PRE-NEED PLANNING. Angelo Pellugio, patriarch of the sixth generation, invariably called her father Mr. Brendan Kean. We meet again, Mr. Brendan Kean. Too often, Angelo, you know my daughter Teresa. I haven’t had the pleasure, Mr. Brendan Kean. Even though she had attended half a dozen wakes and rosaries at Pellugio’s on Sullivan with her father. Lulu Con-stanza. Silvano de la Torre. Carmella Concetta, Dino Concetta’s ninety-nine-year-old mother. It’s a pleasure to meet you, Miss Kean. She favors you, Mr. Brendan Kean. Another thing Angelo Pellugio always said at the wake of one of her father’s clients. Martin Magnin could have taken a lesson in manners from Angelo Pellugio.
Teresa saw no reason to acknowledge receipt of the flowers. Not with the memories they carried. Holy communion every fucking day, Dino Concetta had said of his ninety-nine-year-old mother. She wanted to make fucking a hundred. Dino Concetta was born without a right thumb. Which made him less than the optimum hitter Brendan Kean always said he wanted to be.
“No.”
“You didn’t get my flowers?”
“Mr. Magnin, I’m tired, I’ve had a long day, I want to go to bed.”
“Wait a minute. We got to talk. We’ve got pals in common . . .”
“I think that is extremely unlikely.”
“Jack.”
Oh, God.
“Jack Broderick. He was a pal of yours, right?”
Is there anyone who did not know that Jack Broderick had died in her bed?
“He was my writer, Jack. One of them anyway. A pain in the ass, you want to know the truth. Like all writers. But I figure you know that already.”
She did not know what to say. There had to be a reason Martin Magnin had called. And she knew she would not get to sleep if she hung up without finding out what it was.
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He was still locked on Jack. “He did that thing about the kid movie star. The one that gave Shirley Temple a run for her money until she got all fucked up. Blue Tyler. I own that story. I mean, he did it on my tab, he never delivered, I figure I own the rights, I got to get my money out. I got my people busting his people’s chops. If there’s something there, it belongs to me. We go to court, we got a solid case, my people say. That kid, that Blue Tyler, there’s a major motion picture there somewhere, and I want to make it, and no pain-in-the-ass writer’s going to stiff me.”
Teresa stifled a laugh. She tried to imagine the look on Martin Magnin’s face if he knew that the woman he was talking to in room 1012 of the Rhino Carlton-Plaza Hotel, Capital City, South Midland, was Blue Tyler’s daughter. Then a moment of panic. Had his people found something? Had Jack left something in his papers? Angelo Pellugio, Dino Concetta, Blue Tyler. Teresa felt depleted, as if she had been sentenced to solitary confinement in a prison of the past. LWOPP. “Mr. Magnin, why did you call?”
“Your rights, Teri.”
“What rights?”
“We need you to sign a release.”
“Why?”
“So we can use you in this picture.”
So there had been something in Jack’s files. Her voice seemed to rise an octave. “What picture.”
“I got the wrong room? This is Teri Kean, right?”
Her voice was strangled. A step from hysteria. “My name is Teresa.”
“Who said it wasn’t? Teri Kean. The chick that’s going to defend that nutcase who chilled what’s-his-name, the schwartz, Eddie Parlance.”
Teresa touched her forehead. It was damp with perspiration.
“Jessica’s dying to play you.”
“Jessica?”
“Lange. You’re about what? Fifty? Fifty-five.”
It’s what I feel, certainly. Maybe even look like. A bowl of cucumber slices would be just the ticket right now. “No.”
“Jessica’s around there. Give or take. We put some clamps in, she can do thirty-five. No. That’s a stretch. Forty. ‘With Jessica Lange as Teri Kean.’ That sounds good, right? You can get behind that?”
She could not think of anything to say.
“And I’ve got Jack sniffing around. He loves Jessica. From Postman.”
Jack. Don’t ask. Context clues, the nuns in seventh-grade English at St. Pius V would always say. The Postman Always Rings Twice. Jessica. Jack. Nicholson. “Really.”
“He’s never done a fageleh, Jack, and he might be a little long in the tooth, you got to be a hundred to get that Kennedy Center Honors thing, but he’s a very good personal friend, and if the price was right, I think we could work something out with Sandy Bressler.” She did not dare ask who Sandy Bressler was. Context clues again. Lawyer. Manager. Agent. “You think your partner would sign off on that. ‘And Jack Nicholson as Max Cline.’ ”
It was too much to assimilate. “Mr. Magnin, I won’t sign a release. I’m going to hang up now. Don’t call back. Good night. And thank you for the flowers.”
“I thought you didn’t get the flowers.”
“I made a mistake,” Teresa said as she hung up. She took the bouquet of white roses from the pillow and held it beneath her nose, breathing in the aroma. And Jack Nicholson as Max Cline. Max would appreciate that. It could ease the strain. The considerable strain.
“Tell me why you stole that candle from his room?”
CAPITAL CITY—NEXT THREE EXITS.
Max maneuvered the SUV onto the turno f.
“That candle is evidence,” Teresa said.
He still did not answer.
“And yes, I did read the property report, and yes, I know that moron sheri f did not have the exact number down in the inventory. And it’s a good bet that cretin who was coming on to me copped one, too. Or maybe three. To improve his juggling skills. But I’m an officer of the court, Max. And so are you. If you were still with the A.G., and you knew I’d lifted a piece of evidencefrom the room where a homicide victim lived, you’d drag my ass up before the ethics committee of the state bar, right?”
“Right.”
“Why then?”
“It’s complicated.”
“What isn’t?”
Max shrugged.
Outside the car window she could see houses. Every one the same. Every one with a basketball net and backboard jutting out from its garage.
“I’d like to put this on hold, Teresa.”
“There’s a reason?”
“Conceivably.”
“And that’s all I’m going to get out of you?”
“Yes.”
And it was.
CHAPTER NINE
MAX
The Magnin character called me that night, too. Teri loves the Jessica idea, Max. Jack’s never played one of you people.
One of what people?
He’s always looking for ways to stretch himself.
For his art.
Whatever. But first, you’ll talk to Teri, right? Get her on board. We sign Jack, we sign Jess, then you bid a fond adieu to Cap City, you’re off to the land of milk and honey. You like Malibu?
There’s a trial I have to take care of.
If Teresa still wanted me.
Absolutely. We’ll be in touch.
So.
Now to Stanley. Who always said that separate bathrooms were the secret of a happy marriage. Fat lot he would know about that. I wondered if Stanley considered our connection a marriage. Or even happy. He had usurped the large bathroom off the master bedroom. No reason why not. He was paying for most of the upkeep. Even as senior prosecutor with the A.G., I was not exactly rolling in clover. And less so now as defender of the odious and their right to be judged innocent until proven guilty. In any event, nothing I really believed, however much I prattled to my students, who believed it even less than I did.
My bathroom, half the size of Stanley’s, was down the hall, off the small bedroom I had turned into a home office. Stanley had a tub, but I had the newer shower, three showerheads pounding water at me front, back, and side, with one of those handheld attachments I could use to wash the soap off my genitalia and out of my eyes. Stanley craved my shower, and was constantly talking about putting a new one in his bathroom. Which meant he would have to use mine during the construction. Not so fast. We had an implicit agreement. His bathroom and mine were like tabernacles. Stanley’s word. Not to be violated by the other. A place of secrets. The place we kept things we preferred the other not see.
Like the candle I had left on my sink. I lay down. I could hear Stanley finishing up on the treadmill in the alcove where he kept his barbells and workout paraphernalia. He liked to be sweaty when he got into bed. He thought it was an aphrodisiac.
That damn mangled candle. Which Stanley was holding in his hand as he stood in the doorway. His abs were glazed with perspiration.
“What is this?”
“Stanley, you were in my bathroom.”
“I saw it on the sink. I thought you left it there because you wanted me to see it.”
“It’s evidence.”
“Someone was naughty, was someone?”
“I’m under a gag order.”
“You are so professional, Max. Did Ms. Kean see the candle? Or is that under the gag order, too? And how could you be under a gag order? You haven’t been to court yet.”
“Put it back, Stanley.”
“Does she know how it got twisted into this interesting shape?”
“Good night, Stanley.”
“You are going to introduce me to Ms. Kean, aren’t you? ‘I’m Stanley, you’re Teresa, Max has told me soooo much about you.’ ” He disappeared down the corridor. A moment later he was back, toweling himself vigorously. “She won’t call me Stan, will she?”
CHAPTER TEN
Teresa picked up the phone on the sixth ring.
“Teresa.”
“Max.” Was he in or out? She was supposed to meet Duane Lajoie at the
Correction Center today. Without Max she would have to re-schedule.
“Seven-nineteen. You watching TV?”
“I’m not awake yet.”
“Channel Twenty-three. That’ll wake you up.”
She groped for the remote. She heard the sound first. “. . . The teenaged supermodel arrived last night from New York in a chartered jet . . .”
Alicia Barbara on-screen. In the background the chartered G-5. “Sources say that the cost of chartering a Grumman G-5 for a flight from New York to Capital City would be no less than forty thousand dollars . . .”
Carlyle wearing jeans, boots, a jean jacket and an oversized woolen cap with the peak turned backside front.
“She wasn’t supposed to come until next week.”
“Did she call?” Max said.
“No. Of course not. I don’t want her here before I even see my client.”
Alicia Barbara: “. . . was accompanied by a covey of assistants and prize-winning photographer Alejandro ‘Alex’ Quintero . . .”
Alex Quintero in a khaki camera jacket shooting Carlyle on the tarmac, his assistants reloading his battery of cameras and handing him a new one after every few shots.
Alicia Barbara: “. . . refused to speak to this reporter or say if or when she would see her half brother, Duane Lajoie . . .”
A still of Teresa. “. . . whose defense attorney is Teresa Kean, the well-known Washington victims’ rights advocate and talk-show regular.”
Jesus Christ.
“. . . former colleagues at Justice for All, the advocacy firm headed by Ms. Kean, refused to comment when asked if it were true . . .”
“. . . for a fee said to be one million dollars.”
A shot of Carmen Furillo, her secretary, no, her former secretary, exiting the Justice for All offices with her hand over her face as if she were doing a perp walk. And behind her Lois Bercovici, her chief litigator, same mode, straight ahead, no stopping, no eye contact. In fact, Lois Bercovici had said plenty, but only to Teresa. Dishonest. Hypocritical. Contemptible. Judas. Four of the more measured words Lois Bercovici had used when Teresa had told her staff that she was leaving the firm and that she would defend Duane Lajoie.
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