Bino's Blues

by A. W. Gray

  Twenty-five minutes later the cab—a blue and white Plymouth with a Budweiser ad suspended over its trunk—exited Southwest Freeway and pulled underneath the awning at the

  Red Carpet Inn, a motel built in two three-story sections. There was a marquee over the entry, ballyhooing Crystal Mal-one on the cocktail hour piano in the Scarlet Room. Carla handed a twenty up front to the driver, then got out and crossed the drive to enter the cool motel lobby. She passed two rows of couches on which businessmen sat reading newspapers, went by the check-in counter without so much as a glance, and entered the cocktail lounge. She paused, listening to tinkling piano music as her eyes grew accustomed to the dimness. There were only two tables occupied, both near the pianist, and three lone men sat at the bar. Carla approached the bar and slid onto a stool beside a man in a coal black suit. She ordered Cutty neat, water back.

  As the bartender freepoured Scotch into a rock glass, Carla turned to the man seated next to her. His head was down, and he was drinking orange juice. He wore a goatee. Carla said, “He knows she was in Dallas last week. He’s checking around.”

  The man yanked on his goatee. “I’d expected you to be in touch long before now,” Marvin Goldman said. “Jesus Christ, if we’re going to work this out, you need to tell me what the hell’s going on. How does he know?”

  “It’s the first time I’ve had a chance to get away, without acting gitsy,” Carla said. “Without tipping everybody and their dog off.” She took a filtered Virginia Slim from her handbag, lit, and blew a plume of smoke across the bar. “He called some golf pro where she took a lesson.”

  “That club they all hang around. She was supposed to stay home. That should be an example to you, it’s what can happen when you—”

  “I told you, Mr. Goldman. As soon as I could, here I am.”

  “Well, we aren’t just screwing around here,” Goldman said, grimacing. “We’ve got too much at stake. Look, blow that smoke in some other direction, will you?” He took a clear glass ashtray, extended his arm in front of her, and placed the ashtray on the counter as far on the other side of her as he could reach. “I’m lying to cops, FBI agents, and everybody else to keep you a secret,” Goldman said, “and I can’t even find out what you’re doing. If I didn’t know better, I’d say you and Bino Phillips were having too good of a time.”

  Carla checked her makeup in the back bar mirror. She ran her little finger across her upper lip. “What gave you that idea?” Carla said.

  15

  “THE THING THAT GETS ME,” MANCIL ADRIANI SAID, “IS HOW THEY put that fucker up without modern equipment. For I two centuries you couldn’t build anything taller than William Penn’s hat in this whole fucking town. There’s a story about that.” He was seated on a park bench, dressed in perfectly ironed khaki chino pants along with an oversize red knit polo. His thinning hair was washed and fluffed out. He reached into a small paper sack and tossed a couple of peanuts across the sidewalk. Three pigeons bumped over on ungainly feet and pecked around after the peanuts.

  The man beside Adriani was in his sixties, wearing bifocals in dark plastic frames. He wore a lightweight cotton Jesse James overcoat and his gray hair was windblown. He reached in his pocket and produced a palm-size clear glass vial, half full of amber liquid. “It’s something new I’m recommending,” he said in a distinct Northern accent. “Abericinine. Disappears from the system in less than twenty seconds, absorbed right into the bloodstream. It contains some arsenic compounds, laced with—”

  “I give a shit what it is?” Adriani grinned and nudged the man with his elbow. “You always treat me right, Charles, I got no problem with you. You say the stuff’s okay, I buy that. First time you don’t treat me right, then we got something to talk about.” He tossed more peanuts, made a clucking sound, looked satisfied as additional pigeons joined in the hunt. He looked up, then up further still, his head reclining on his neck as he gazed at massive stone blocks, at William Penn directly overhead, the brim of the hat shadowing the face and hiding the hat’s crown from view. “Story is,” Adriani said, “that some contractors up here got in bed with a few politicos, made it worth their while to change the city ordinance so they finally could build a few skyscrapers. I think they fucked up the town. This country needs some historical values, you know? I can’t stand crooked political fuckers.”

  The older man replaced the vial in his pocket and leaned back on the bench. “These additional ingredients are expensive, but worth the difference.”

  “I met some of those assholes,” Adriani said, “doing time. Most guys in the joint I keep my mouth shut, I figure what somebody did to get in there is their own business. But these bastards were fucking up American history, you know? I give ’em all hell. Got other guys to give ’em hell, too, and they deserved every bit of it. I mean, what would Benjamin fucking Franklin say?”

  “I’ve had to double the price,” the older man said.

  Adriani sat up straighter, swiveled his head to look at the gray-haired man, the eyes distorted by thick bifocals. “Say,” Adriani said, “you wouldn’t fuck old Mancil around, would you? I think you know better. If you say twice the price, I just make the difference up from my guy. But if I catch you fucking me around … ”

  “My costs are much higher,” the man said.

  “So I’ll buy it.” Adriani tossed peanuts. There were now twenty or thirty of the clumsy birds, a couple of the pigeons venturing halfway across the sidewalk in Adriani’s direction, then scuttling for safety as two young women in jogging suits went by. “Pisses me off, too,” Adriani said, “what they done to the Liberty Bell. When I was a kid they had it real nice out in the open. Now they got it down the street in a building looks like Buck Rogers constructed the fucking thing. People don’t know nothing about historical preservation.” He dug in his pocket, produced a thick roll of hundred-dollar bills, and counted the money out on the bench. “I don’t understand your outfit, Charles. Damn near as hot up here as it is in Texas this time of year, you’re wearing a fucking overcoat. Looks like you’d burn up in that thing.”

  The older man leaned forward, intently watching Adriani stack the money, brought the vial back out, and set it on the bench. “Ozone layer’s dissipating,” he said. “Protecting my skin.”

  “I’m damn sure glad,” Adriani said, “the women in that Sports Illustrated don’t think like you. Would really fuck up the swimsuit issue, you know? Two thousand, Charles? I got a plane to catch.” He looked up once more at William Penn. “Pisses me off I got no more time. I come in at eleven, got to leave at four. I had time I’d go in that city hall and give some people a piece of my mind, fucking up these historical landmarks around here.”

  Adriani walked a couple of blocks south from City Hall Square and hailed a cab at the corner of Sansom and Broad. He had two hours before takeoff, so he told the cabbie to take the scenic route, tooling at a leisurely pace east on Chestnut through Independence National Historic Park. They passed Congress Hall. Adriani curled his upper lip at the glass enclosure surrounding the Liberty Bell. He thought they could at least have built the structure with rustic logs, make the fucking thing look historical.

  Then they dallied through South Philly, a detour from the direct route to International Airport. Adriani watched remorsefully through the backseat window, looking at unswept streets the width of bowling lanes, cars parked bumper to bumper all along the curbs, old brick buildings housing dry cleaners and small Italian restaurants.

  One of the restaurants, Timpanic’s, Adriani recalled, served the best fucking mussels this side of Boston Bay in an open-air courtyard. Once when he was twenty-three Adriani and Jimmy Ditulio, Jimmy Dit they called the guy, had entered Timpanic’s around eight in the evening. Shoulder to shoulder they’d strolled in, smiling hidy-do to the waitress, pretty young thing in an apron with a faint mustache on her upper lip, Jimmy Dit and Mancil Adriani saying, One of these days, darlin’, one of these days when y
ou’re getting off, we’ll go have us some fun, huh? And she’d grinned back at them, liking the attention, smiling at the two young Italian men as they’d sauntered into the courtyard where an older man named Angelo Bedell was eating his dinner. Angelo Bedell, surrounded by his wife and seven kids, had paused with one mussel half pried from the shell. He’d dropped shell and all onto his plate, his eyes knowing, understanding full well what was coming, glancing frantically about for an escape route for a second or two. Then he’d showed a sort of resigned acceptance as Jimmy Dit and Mancil Adriani had leveled identical WWII German Lugers and pumped four 9mm slugs apiece into Angelo Bedell. Adriani had gotten satisfaction from seeing the waitress, smiling moments ago, put both hands over her mouth and scream at the top of her lungs. He’d paused on the way out to bend and kiss her on the cheek, that’s how much of a stupid jackoff he’d been in those days, had kissed the broad with her looking right at him for identification purposes. He and Jimmy Dit had strolled leisurely down the block, dropping the Lugers and gloves into a garbage can. The kissing incident had worried them enough so that Adriani and Jimmy Dit had had a talk with the waitress’s sister, after which the waitress had lost her memory.

  Adriani ducked back in the cab as he spotted two guys familiar to him, Ralph Demoin and Arthur Caterine, two guys in jeans and T-shirts ascending to street level from the stand-up crap game below Arnold’s Sandwich Shop. He would have liked to stop and speak to Ralph Demoin and Arthur Caterine, two all right guys Adriani had never had words with, and maybe drop in below Arnold’s to renew some old acquaintances. But if he were to acknowledge the guys, his life expectancy would shrink a few years.

  Adriani directed the cabbie to halt in front of a clapboard building with a counter displaying newspapers from around the globe. Handing a twenty to the driver, he told the man to fetch him a Houston Chronicle and to keep the change. Five minutes later, the Chronicle folded under his arm, Adriani told the driver he’d seen enough, he was ready for Philly International.

  At 3:25, fifteen minutes from boarding his L.A. flight, Adriani settled down at the gate and looked through the Chronicle. He tossed aside the front page and sports, and went straight to the metropolitan section, zeroing in on an article headlined “jailed attorney well known in Dallas criminal courts.” He digested the story word for word, learning that Russell Benson had a strong record of getting guys acquitted or their sentences reduced. By the time he’d finished the story, the gate attendant was calling his flight. Adriani folded the paper tightly and dropped it on a chair as he moved up, boarding pass ready, to stand in line.

  It was a fuckup, Adriani thought. I’m going to regret doing that broad.

  16

  WHEN CARLA RETURNED AROUND FIVE-THIRTY, CARRYING A shopping bag, Bino was sitting up in a chair watching senior golf on ESPN. She dropped the bag onto the king-size as she said, “I picked up a few things. I see you’re through on the phone.”

  “Watching this Trevino proves to me,” Bino said, “that technique has nothing to do with it. Guy swings the club like he’s driving nails.”

  “First the telephone, now the golf. God.”

  He picked up the remote and clicked off the set. “I thought we’d have a nice dinner. Your show’s at eight, right?”

  “On the dot,” Carla said, shrugging out of her suspenders, undoing and stepping out of her shorts, bending to fold the shorts, wearing tan bikini panties. “And it’s going to cost you, buster.” Her features relaxed. “What are you finding out?”

  Bino stood and walked over to the closet, opened the door, and withdrew navy Dockers on a hanger. “Finding out about what?”

  Carla pulled her cotton sweater up over her head, her breasts compressing with the movement, her hair tousled, slightly messed by the sweater. “Rusty. So, did he kill Rhonda?” She blinked.

  Bino buttoned and zipped the trousers, took a tan woven belt from the closet, and threaded the belt through the loops. “I’m not sure,” he said, “and I don’t want to know. For now I’m only worried about Rusty’s bail, and I’m treating him just like any other client. Whether he did it or not isn’t my problem. I imagine it’s something Goldman would give his eyeteeth to find out.”

  Carla froze for an instant, her head down, then resumed her rummaging through hangers holding her performing costumes. “Who’d give his eyeteeth?”

  “Marvin Goldman,” Bino said. “He’s the U.S. Attorney down here hawking me.”

  Carla selected snug white pants with Indian princess braid down both legs. “I thought maybe he’d confessed to his lawyer,” she said.

  Bino reached in past her and grabbed a white Izod knit. “Not me, babe. If I find anything out, though, I’ll let you know.”

  At one o’clock in the morning a guard clanked a private cell open on the eighth floor of the Harris County fail and shone a flashlight inside. “Get up, Benson,” he said.

  In a few seconds Rusty Benson stepped into the corridor, blinking. He had a stubble of beard. “Can I get a drink?”

  The guard cuffed the prisoner’s hands. “Come on.”

  “I’m dying of thirst.”

  “I said, come on.” The guard led Benson to the elevator, then took him down to the third level and through the catwalk over Main Street into the District Attorney’s offices. The prisoner’s feet shuffled in jailhouse slippers. The office was dark, the way lighted by occasional desk lamps illuminating covered typewriters and computer terminals. Midway through the open-bay work area was a row of four cubicles enclosed by six-foot partitions. Inside one of the cubicles a light burned. The guard led Benson in and sat him down in a chair with a slatted back. As the deputy cuffed Benson to a chair arm, the prisoner blinked dully around at Roger Tiddle seated behind a desk, at Marvin Goldman and Buck Fuller seated in chairs identical to the one in which Benson sat. All three lawmen wore slacks and sport shirts. The desk was bare except for a pocket-size tape recorder. Tiddle said to the guard, “Give us a half hour.” The deputy nodded and left.

  “How you holding up, Rusty?” Goldman said.

  Benson nodded. “Marv. Things could be better.”

  “You can make them better.”

  Benson rubbed his handcuffed wrist, not saying anything.

  “You can come on over,” Detective Fuller said, “and we’ll help you.”

  Roger Tiddle watched with his fingers pyramided, touching his lips.

  “I could use a drink of water,” Benson said.

  Goldman massaged his bicep. “I suspect you could.”

  “We’ve got your hit man, Rusty,” Fuller said. “He’s talking to us.”

  Benson dropped his wrist. The handcuff clinked. “You do? What’s his name?”

  Fuller and Tiddle looked at each other.

  Goldman bent his wrist and looked at his flexed forearm muscle. “Come on, you’re not going to bullshit this guy.” He relaxed his arm. “We do have somebody talking to us up in Dallas, though. Terry Nolby.”

  Benson scratched his stubbled cheek. “Oh? How’s Terry doing?”

  Goldman chuckled and murmured, “Shit.” He placed a lightly clenched fist on the desk. “How long do you think these guys can hold you, Rusty?”

  “I hadn’t thought about it.”

  “Well, you should. Six months without bond, then maybe with bail you can’t post. Three or four million. You can be here a couple of years while they’re fucking with you.”

  Tiddle remained unmoving, his fingers before his lips as he said, “I think that’s conservative.”

  “You shouldn’t be talking to me without my lawyer,” Benson said.

  Fuller’s eyes grew big and round. “Do tell.”

  Benson sighed and rubbed his forehead. “What do you want? I’m not copping to any kind of murder, you can forget that.”

  “Suppose we were talking,” Goldman said, “just Dallas things. More cops, maybe a judge or two.�
�

  “I’d want to keep my law license,” Benson said.

  Goldman and Tiddle exchanged a look. Goldman said, “That’s not possible, Rusty, you know that. Likely you’re going to do a piece of time. Year or two, but you can do it federal. Tennis courts and shit.”

  “You’d move me, right?”

  “Tonight, if you give the word,” Goldman said.

  “And we’re forgetting about any state charge? Period, I’d have to have that.”

  Goldman indicated Tiddle. “This man would help me on that.”

  “I’d want a bath first,” Benson said. “Christ, I smell like a horse.”

  “I’m not believing this,” Detective Fuller said. “I thought this guy would be a helluva lot tougher.”

  Goldman winked at Benson. “Tough’s one thing,” Goldman said. “Smart’s another.” He looked at Tiddle. “Call your guard, Roger. Rusty cleans up nice, believe me.”

  17

  BINO GOT UP THE NEXT MORNING, CREEPING AROUND ON TIPTOES so as not to disturb Carla, slipped into his blue suit, and prepared to leave the room. He paused for a moment in the doorway, watching the milk-skinned girl slumbering peacefully on her side, one bare rounded hip showing with the folds of the sheet tucked around her thighs. He winced as he touched the scratch on his shoulder, then did the same as he gingerly touched his eye.

  He covered the seven long blocks to 1301 Franklin Street, rehearsing in his mind what he wanted to go over with Rusty Benson. He had to be careful, doing what he could to help Rusty get out of jail and at the same time protecting Tommy Clinger’s interests. Keeping the two cases apart wasn’t going to be easy.

  The deputy behind the desk, a lantern-jawed black guy whose head was shaved, was the same wiseass who’d been working the property room when Bino had retrieved his clothes after his own stint in jail. The deputy smirked in recognition. Bino ignored the guy, lowered his head, and filled in the blanks on the sign-in register. The deputy spun the register around to read, glanced at Bino, then returned his attention to the page.