by Jim Kohlberg
My hands were dying for a cigarette, as were my lungs. And just as I walked into the tree-lined quiet and approached my redoubt of safety, I saw Irene outside pacing, and of all things, smoking. She had never smoked. Not ever. Not once.
I walked closer. She glared my way and immediately threw her cigarette to the ground. Then she began to clomp back toward our front door.
“Irene,” I called after her. She kept walking, a flare to the hem of her dress as she speeded up, held back from running by her wooden clogs.
“Irene, wait.” Something in my voice stopped her and she stood ramrod straight, still with her back to me. I jogged a few steps and caught up to her. As I walked close, I put a hand on her upper arm to turn her around. She shrugged it off with a jerk of her shoulder. Her head was bowed as I walked around her, and I could see wet eyelashes on her down-turned cheeks.
“Irene, what’s the matter?”
She kept her head down, her bright lashes flashing, sunlight on dewdrops.
“Nothing.” She shook her head as teardrops whisked off her eyes like water from a shaking dog.
“Nothing? Doesn’t look like nothing. Tell me what’s wrong. Is your uncle okay?”
She took a deep breath and shook her head in a way I didn’t like, looking away from me, something in her expression, some insult, some disappointment, some truth. She waved her hand at the office.
“Danny Cleveland’s in there.”
“So? Why? What’s he doing here?”
Finally she turned around, her eyes still moist but her head up, chest out, heart free. I could see it, beating as if she had no skin. Pride showing through her tears and the effort of getting her face together.
“Those are a lot of questions, Max. Which one do you want me to answer?”
“The one about why you’re crying.”
Irene looked at me with tears falling from angry eyes.
“He’s a nasty guy. And he has some bad news.”
“So he wants his five grand back. I did strike out with Redfield.”
“He says he’s chairman of Amagansett. Joe’s hedge fund? They’re pulling their accounts.”
“That was gonna happen anyway, Irene. It’s no big deal.”
“The Stoppard Trust pulled its account too.” That was a problem. A big problem. My biggest account.
“How did he know that?”
“Says he’s on the board as a consultant or something. He was pretty vague.”
“What did he tell you?”
“Nothing.”
“How could it be nothing if it upset you?”
“I realized it was just . . . a fucking waste of time. We’re off. Done.”
“I’ve never heard you swear.”
“I’m learning,” she said.
“What did he say?”
“Just gossip.”
“Irene.”
“All right,” she said, finally looking up at me, “you asked.” And here she took a deep breath in her lungs. “He said you had been screwing around with Christina again. Recently. After the funeral.”
“He said that?”
“He did.”
“I’ll rip his fucking head off. That little shit.”
“Is it true?”
“No! For God’s sake, Irene. Is that what you’re upset about? You should know me better than that. I should be insulted. How can you doubt my integrity like that?”
“It was important to me.”
“It’s important to me, too, Irene.”
“To know the guy . . . the man I work for is honest. You know that matters.”
“Well, the guy you work for is about to beat up a cripple,” I said, and stormed for my front door. “Watch this,” I said.
“Watch out,” she said. As usual she was right.
When I walked in, Danny Cleveland’s right plastic hand was lying on the table. He was not attached to it and was drinking a glass of water from a pitcher full of ice on the credenza. The hand lay on the table, a practical joke, a plastic tarantula, fat and heavy on a pillow. The fingers were bent and curled, ready to crawl away in movement. I looked at it a little closer. It wasn’t the same color, that plastic of human tan and peeling neoprene polish. There were no attachments, but two small empty buckles hung off each side of the upper wrist.
He saw me looking at it. He saw my face. I could feel his anger bottle up as I looked at the hand in the center of the table. He poked his chin at the dead, spidery hand.
“My real one’s in the shop. This one’s just a strap on. Pretty worthless. Can barely hold change with it. It’s a hell of a club though. I don’t think I’ll be having trouble with the Gaslight Boys.”
“Gaslight Boys?”
“The rough kids. Short pants. Underwear showing. Think they’re hard. We call them Gaslight Boys back home.”
“You’re from Ireland?”
“My grandparents.”
“Why don’t you can the Danny Boy act then?”
“That’s a lot of hostility you’ve got building there, Mr. Smoller.”
“What are you doing here? What did you say to Irene?”
“Only the truth, dear boy, only the truth.”
“What’s that?”
“I’m chairman of Amagansett. Did Joe tell you?”
“No.”
“You can check with the funds’ lawyers. Anyway . . .”
“What have you got to do with the Stoppard Trust?”
“They’re a limited partner in Amagansett. At George Stoppard’s persuasion, of course.”
“So you know George, too?”
“Of course, my boy. So did Joe.”
“You have the authority to change their accountants?” I demanded.
“These things never work that way. A little chat over a beer on the tenth hole. A few peanuts on the eighteenth. Some discreet conversation, and the next time your engagement runs out.” He shrugged. “At tax time, every year, dear boy. It’s over. On to a big firm. There really is no reason to go with a small fry like you.”
“What did you tell Irene about Christina?”
“Just that you’d been at her hotel the other night. Right before the funeral.”
“You tell her I slept with her?”
“Did you?” he asked. Before I could answer, he held up his hand. “Wonderful gossip, you know. Whiff of scandal. Might even make the society pages of the Chronicle. Another Dede Wilsey story, but with a murder. How could an editor resist?”
“Why don’t you tell me why you’re here? Why didn’t you tell me you were on the board of Joe’s funds? For that matter, why didn’t Joe tell me?”
“I’m sure he felt it was an unnecessary complication. I just wanted some help with my tax refund.”
He went over to the table and picked up his hand. The wrist stuck out. Then he pulled out two leather straps from his right sleeve. He threaded the straps through the buckles and bent his head to grasp one leather strap with his teeth. He pulled tight on one, then the other. His right hand stuck out of his sleeve. He pulled his jacket down over the wrist.
“It becomes itchy when I sweat.” He shrugged. “I walked up the Filbert Steps from down on Sansome. A huge mistake. Must be three hundred steps.”
“Four hundred seventy-nine,” I said, having climbed it many times.
“I came for a reason, Max. A good reason. I’m on your side, though you may not know it. So, please, do as George asks. He’s much more involved in your affairs than you thought. Joe saw to that.”
“I didn’t know George was that involved in the trusts.”
“But I’m here to tell you. There’s nothing to this idea of Joe’s. There was no bribing of officials. People like Kessler and Stoppard don’t do that. They don’t need to do that. They have enough already. How could you think they were so stupid?”
“I don’t think they’re stupid. I just don’t know whether they pay their taxes.”
“Joe was a little nuts at the end. His funds were going south. He was worrie
d about raising money. People were about to flee. Returns were going negative. Believe me.”
“Did he have redemptions?”
“Not yet,” Danny said, “not yet. But I am not here to talk about Joe or even Amagansett. I’m here to tell you I’ve decided to go ahead and take my refund. Keep that money I gave you. I know you tried with Armand.”
“Why are you keeping the refund? How do you know I talked to Armand?”
“Joe told me to hire you. He thought Redfield would never meet with him.”
“Did you have me followed?”
“Joe wanted to get you and Armand together. He didn’t think he should try with Armand.”
“He was right. If Armand met with him and it came out, he’d lose everything.”
“That’s why he asked me to make up this refund story.”
“It was the damnedest thing I ever heard. Still is.”
“Well, it got you talking to Armand. He saw you, didn’t he?”
“The IRS talks to accountants all the time.”
“Exactly.”
“So you cooked up the refund to do what?”
“Joe was sure Armand was behind his audits. Especially when Armand tried to go back three years.”
“That’s why he said he brought me in,” I said. “Those were my returns.”
“Exactly. So you see. He had to call you.”
“Look. I want you out of my life right now. Get out.”
“All right, my boy, I’ll go. But you’ll still need to go after Armand.”
“Why?”
“Because he’s looking at those three back years.”
“I did them myself.”
“That’s why Joe asked me to talk to you, remember?”
“He won’t find anything.”
“Joe was counting on it.”
Danny put his right hand back in his jacket pocket and pulled away from the table he’d been leaning on. He walked past me, his sallow face flashing as he went by. That flash picture that your mind takes that won’t go away. It stayed with me as I heard him go down the stairs.
Joe was counting on it. Joe was counting on it. To put me between him and the feds? What if . . . What if he really had done something wrong? What if there really was fraud? What if those shelters were designed for maximum benefit and were way past the edge of the code?
I could have always fallen back on Joe, given the old defense: I just did what my client’s records showed. No liability here, Armand. No crime in that. Maybe a little stupid. But Joe was my friend. I didn’t think he’d do anything like that.
But Joe was gone and there wasn’t anything between me and Armand now.
Chapter 19
On that morning I was wrapped in fog. I had woken well before dawn and launched myself showered but unshaven out into wet and shrouded streets. The car was damp and cold. My hands on the wheel retracted from the touch of chilled, clammy leather, and my heater took precious minutes to warm the seats.
I drove up the back of Telegraph Hill. The stop signs were glazed with dew and the streetlights haloed with a weak sun circled by clouds presaging rain. I parked down the street from my office, climbed the steps, and luxuriated in the heat from the radiators I had installed throughout the old building. The coffee urn had already fired off, set at 5 a.m. for just these types of early mornings or sleepless nights. I took a fresh cup out of the thermal carafe and sat down at my desk to stare out over the invisible bay wrapped in its cocoon.
I worked on some returns but with no concentration or attention. Danny Cleveland’s case was done, if only because, whatever he was trying to pull, he kept the refund; a victory in these instances. Just one more example of how guys like Cleveland and Kessler win even when they lose.
I knew as I went through them, checking that credit boxes were filled in properly and the numbers footed, that these were my last cases. I had not done this work since the early days of my practice and had since farmed it out to an eager young accountant, Mario Pantella, who did fast and excellent work, freeing me from worry and embarrassment from my clients.
But now I was doing it myself, a bittersweet ache in my hands and chest as I looked into the morning mist. My last return, my last 1040. I can’t really believe you’re going to do this, put up and quit and jump into what? And the answer came. Something more important than this.
Then a knock sounded on the door. The knocking stopped, then started again as I remained in my chair, not wanting to walk down three flights of stairs. It was before seven and Irene didn’t arrive until eight. Finally, as the pounding threatened the door’s joints, I walked downstairs.
I yanked the door open. Standing in the fog, both of their collars turned up against the chill morning wind, were Napoleon and Arty.
They stood on the steps, two blackened beasts of prey, heavy with portent.
“We need your coffee,” the portent said.
I turned around from them and didn’t close the door. They followed me into the entry hall and down the shining blond wood floor and into our kitchen where the thermal carafe rested like a prize on an altar. Arty went straight to a cabinet and got some buffalo china mugs. Napoleon pulled metal chairs up to the small breakfast table.
Arty poured black oily coffee into the mugs, and steam rose from them. The bitter smell filled the air. I could feel warmth through the mug in my hands. No one spoke. The clinking noise of the spoons stirring sugar into cups, plops of milk competed with the hum of the fridge. We hunkered down, taking small sips until the caffeine hit us and chased the remnants of sleep away. That first sip in the morning, food for the famished, speed for the weary, sunlight for the blue.
“So, Max,” Nappy finally said, pushing his coffee away from him and straightening up, “we got some news.”
“Some bad news,” Arty said, stabbing a glance at his partner.
“Christina? She’s dead?” I asked. I knew her tumor had grown.
“Went over to the DA yesterday,” he said, like yest-ta-dee, like my mom’s old friends from up near Boston, “and Guthrie laid out the case for us.”
“It’s pretty tight,” Napoleon said.
“Compelling,” Arty added.
I pushed my coffee away.
“Great. Hurray for you. Go on home now. Case closed,” I said.
“C’mon, Max. We tried. You know that.”
“You did your duty, okay?” I said to the two of them. They leaned backward, looked down at their coffee, and put the mugs on the table. I could see in their calm and blank faces that they had expected this. They were sitting there letting my anger wash over them. I had known this had to come, but I had to do it just the same.
“Go on home. You told me,” I said, weary now, very suddenly weary, with no anger to fuel my exhaustion. I needed more coffee so I got some and chugged it after a huge dollop of milk cooled it down. It still tasted bitter, the glory of that first cup gone. I was angry at it being gone, just as I was when the sun rises into noon and morning happiness goes with it. I just had these two friends, new friends that felt like old ones because of what we’d been through. They were watching me the way old friends do when they’re worried. Worried and they have bad news.
Chapter 20
By afternoon, heat finally cleared the streets of fog, if only briefly. Shiny cars glinted in the mounting morning sun. There was no traffic on California Street as my Audi climbed Nob Hill, and the trolleys slid by nearly empty in the dandelion morning light. I dawdled at the top, puttered on slowly to Divisadero, letting two cars go through the stop signs before I accelerated through.
Joe’s house loomed large against the sky as I came up the last incline to the top of the Heights. That last humpback gave the pillared mansions there three-sixty-degree views of diamond-sparkled ocean, placid bay, and tan building-studded cityscape, worth every penny now. There was a white van in the driveway and a Honda parked out front when I got there, but otherwise the house was shuttered and drawn. I walked up those long, wide steps I had cli
mbed so long ago, three ancient weeks ago.
I felt strangely shorn of volition; my feet strode up the steps with energy I did not possess, and my hand punched the doorbell and grasped the knob with a determination not mine. The white door opened with my touch, and standing behind it was a black-haired man in nurse’s whites with a prizefighter’s nose and broad Mestizo cheekbones. He looked over his shoulder and then turned aside to let me in. Behind him was Guthrie. He had his hat in his hand again, just as when we had met that first day, that unforgotten day, in Joe’s office. He nodded at the man dressed in white, who swiveled, the rubber soles of his scuffed leather shoes squeaking on the white marble squares. They were strange shoes for a male nurse, I thought.
Guthrie moved forward. He slowly rotated the brim of the hat through his fingers like a wheel. He waited before he spoke, looking past me at the ceiling.
“You don’t seem surprised to see me,” he said at last. And I realized I wasn’t. I shook my head. He continued. “You can see her. I think I’ve asked as much as I needed to.”
I was about to ask him what they talked about and what he was going to do with her, but I hesitated, trying to think how to phrase it so I wouldn’t presume or telegraph innocence or guilt to him. But before I made up my mind or opened my mouth he had started for the door. I didn’t move a muscle until the front door clicked shut behind me.
I walked down the hallway into the connected den. It had been Joe’s office once, three long-gone weeks ago. Someone had converted it into a bedroom, since it was on the ground floor and had a private full bath. It saved the nurses from carrying food and supplies up and down stairs all day, though it seemed odd, unlike Christina to sacrifice her view and comfort for that of the staff.
At the end of the hall, carpeted and quiet underfoot, I rapped a knuckle on the door and heard her say “Come in.” Through the door her voice sounded high-pitched and birdlike, warbling through quick octaves.