The receptionist, Pauline Chong, gave her a brisk military salute, and Leon Robinovitch came out and made one of those Eastern mystical bows, the hands rolling lower and lower as he bent reverently toward her. Something from his Buddhist retreats, she assumed.
Some clients were in the waiting room. A prim, worried-looking woman being comforted by a cleric, Roman or Anglican with his reversed collar. And an older couple: the Jepsons or Jessons, a house conveyance.
“We are ennobled by your presence, O great lady.” Leon mimed rolling out a red carpet for her, bending, stepping back until he bumped his ass into Chuck Tchobanian’s groin.
“Not in public, please, darling,” Chuck said.
The minister frowned. Carrie’s two clients looked uncomfortable. “I’ll be with you in a few minutes, Mr. and Mrs. Jepson,” Carrie said.
“Jessup,” said the husband.
Where was Ted? In his office no doubt, with one of his divorce clients, being all sympathetic and charming.
“Trixi Trimble called,” said Pauline Chong. “Wants to know when her trial is.”
“Oh, for God’s sake. Phone and tell her it’s Tuesday. And not to embarrass me by nodding out on heroin while the judge reads the verdict.” Carrie spoke too loudly; the Jessups were pretending to be absorbed in magazines, but their eyes widened with alarm.
She urged her partners toward the staff lounge, through the secretarial pool, weaving through the planters, glossy, bushy vegetation — they almost needed a full-time gardener. Everything was grossly tasteful: oak panelling, recessed lights, a heavy wool pile on the floor. Ted had insisted: clients aren’t impressed by plain vanilla, he wanted an office that said, Open the wallet, folks. It worked for his clients maybe, Carrie thought. Didn’t impress the crooks and the seekers of civil rights, their major clientele.
“It was on the news, Carrie,” Leon said. “Dramatic win. So why aren’t you smiling?”
Carrie looked at them with her wide startled eyes. She tried on one smile, then another; they didn’t feel real. Why was she tense?
“She’s in a state of emotional paralysis,” Leon said, always diagnosing everybody. “It’s common after a dramatic event.”
“Yeah,” said Chuck, “she’s spacing out. Quick, get some caffeine into her or she’ll float out into the ozone thinking she’s God.”
Carrie suddenly relaxed and did a real smile.
“What may end up being truly significant about this case,” said Leon, who looked as if he was about to pontificate, “is that the trial was run — with no help — by a woman. At last, they are forgetting their place in society, one reserved to women for centuries. Second place.”
“Leon, you’re so cloying when you condescend,” said Carrie.
But she realized he had made an attempt at irony and she immediately felt bad: Leon looked like a hurt puppy. Still a hippie in 1980, bearded, hair curling below his shoulders, a long, aquiline beak, dark inquiring eyes. Always searching. Mostly for himself.
“I have to be honest, Carrie,” said Chuck. “I’m insanely jealous.”
Chuck was the firm’s other criminal lawyer. He hustled more than Carrie; he was brash, pushy in court. Armenian roots, tough: an amateur boxer in his late teens, a decade ago. Slicked-back black hair, dark darting eyes. Reckless, irreverent. He and Carrie went back a long time; she had introduced him to one of her best friends, Lisa, an artist. Now they were married.
“So how’re you going to feel when he kills again?” Chuck said.
“That’s disgusting, Chuck. I’ve known Edwin Moodie for years. He has about as much killer instinct as a bunny rabbit.”
“Oh, he’ll fight it for a while. What is it, six months since his arrest? Every six to eight months he gets this urge, right? Puts on his black mask and goes out to seek a victim to satisfy his cravings.”
“You’re despicable.” But there had been that report by one of the psychiatrists, who said Moodie hated women . . . A fraud, that shrink, Dr. Humbug. Thank God she never showed the court his report.
“I hear she picked out poor Jock Strachan,” Leon said.
“Well, maybe because he is the Midnight Strangler,” Carrie said.
“Get real. How did she make a mistake like that?”
“A couple of women officers did all her interviews. She probably half-noticed Jock a couple of times at the police station. He rang the wrong bell for her in court. Anyway, that’s my guess. I’m going to find Mr. Moodie a job.”
“That cartage company I’m doing an impaired for,” said Chuck, “maybe they need a specialist in carrying fridges and pianos. Or hauling barges. Maybe I can get him a spot on Thursday-night wrestling. The Midnight Strangler takes on all comers.” He turned serious. “Carrie, in this business, you do the gig, you go on to the next one. You let your old clients go. You don’t bottle-feed them and tuck them in every night. He’s a cookie cutter, Carrie. He belongs in a padded room.”
He passed her a cup of coffee. Carrie sipped at it. She was hungry and wondered if there was a stale doughnut in the fridge. She wanted a cigarette badly. Three months now, the addiction still burning within her.
“I know you believe he’s innocent, Carrie,” said Leon, “and he may well be, but do you think it’s wise to, ah, get involved with him?”
Involved. It seemed a strange term for kindness, for helping out some poor sod without family or friends or means. “Involved with a client” was an expression lawyers often used when referring to a more illicit, intimate activity. Where had Ted been those afternoons he was neither in court nor in the office? She wanted to talk to Chuck about it — Chuck shared Ted’s secrets, they were fellow jocks, squash buddies, dirty talk in the locker room. Chuck used to be so close to her, but had become Ted’s best friend; Ted had stolen him from her.
“I’m not involved with Edwin Moodie.”
“I’d be careful,” said Leon.
Carrie then heard her husband’s hearty, backslapping voice, and she could see him through the doorway, ushering from his office Melissa Cartwright, the socialite: designer body, day-glo pant suit. A minor film star once, before she married a rich surgeon. Dr. Cartwright, the heart specialist, who couldn’t repair his own broken one.
She saw Ted and Melissa exchange a look that seemed too confiding, too promising.
No. Very unlikely. A client. What is going on with you, Carrie? Whence this sudden neurosis, this doubt? What proof is offered?
Ted was by the coffee-lounge door now, and he peeked in. “Way to go, Carrie, I’m proud of you. Damned good work.”
She looked at him with her startled eyes. “Thank you.”
“Carrie, darling,” Melissa said, coming in. She gave her a buss on the cheek — she stank of expensive perfume. “Congratulations, I heard about it.”
Carrie flicked a cool smile at her. Melissa and Ted disappeared, and were replaced in the doorway by Chuck’s secretary. “Don’t forget your appointment. Mrs. Klein and that minister.”
“Send them in.” Chuck gulped back the last of his coffee. “Mrs. Klein is the doting mother of a son gone bad. She wants me to bail him out. Chance of a snowball. Walked into a mom-and-pop with a sawed-off shotgun.”
They left the lounge, Carrie returning to the waiting room to fetch the Jessups. They’d been referred up from the ground floor; General and Commercial Trust, their landlords. The referrals paid the rent.
She sifted through the mail in her slot. Diner’s Club bill. She daren’t look at that. Offer of settlement on Mrs. Myers’s whiplash, way too low. Newsletter from the criminal justice subsection.
Ted and Melissa were by the front door, talking in low tones. Carrie could hear: not to worry, he was saying, he’ll handle that husband of hers, wait until he gets him on the stand. Melissa was touching him, her hand resting on Ted’s sinewy wrist, his racket hand. Graceful and handsome and athletic was Theodor
e Barr: Varsity tennis champ, chairman of his college debating society, a former long-haired campus radical. Short-haired divorce specialist now. Moving into commercial and corporate law. Favoured three-piece suits.
“Ta-ra, Carrington, dear.” Melissa waved a goodbye to her. Carrie pretended she didn’t see it. Out of the corner of her eye she saw Ted glaring at her.
More bills. The usual stuff: Law Society bulletins, charity mailouts. Copy of Trixi Trimble’s police record, worse than she thought. The twenty tickets she promised to sell for the chamber-music series this fall.
A scribbled screed on lined paper from a man who had seen her “pickture on the TV” — an item on the news about the Moodie trial, she assumed. Unsigned. He wanted to meet her alone. “They” were watching him. Carrie was a celebrity now. This was the price. She shuddered.
Ted joined Carrie, talking low, pretending he was also reading his mail.
“You could try to be more pleasant to Melissa. She’s paying us a whack of money.”
“She’s a cheap hustler, Ted, and you know it. A gold-digger. A bloody rich tramp!”
Good Lord, she was almost shouting — what was wrong with her? She looked at the Jessups. The wife stole a glance at the husband; they weren’t concentrating on their National Geographics.
She hated herself for this . . . shrewishness. But they had been like this for almost two months: caustic, sniping, acting like children. Love him but don’t marry him, Leon had said. Live together, sure. But don’t marry another lawyer. Especially Ted, a great guy but spoiled, still growing up. But she wasn’t interested in such logic three years ago. Blinkered by love.
Ted spoke brusquely now, and loud. “All I ask is you treat her with at least the same civility you bestow upon your friend the serial killer.”
She suddenly felt nauseated — she could still smell the perfume, it was on Ted now.
“Damn it, Ted, let’s not do this now. I have clients.”
She turned to where the Jessups had been sitting. But they were gone.
2
Beneath the feet of Perez and Hiltz, the floor vibrated: muffled explosions, bowling balls, pins scattering. From the portable radio, Anne Murray kept asking if she could have this dance.
Normie the Nose Shandler watched them working, felt their nervous energy, smelled their jittery odour. The night was hot and humid, their skin was wet and shining and their shirts stained. Normie the Nose waited, mellowed out, as he watched them pour heroin into a punch bowl, sweet delicious smack, dream porridge, the joy ride. Escape and forgetting.
“That first hit was kinda chippy,” he said, and he was lying, because it actually had a pretty good lift. “Too much buff.”
They ignored him, mixed up another sample, one part smack, six parts lactose. The Nose continued to stare at that punch bowl with his tiny pinned pupils. He was short and bony, with a sharp nose like a terrier’s, a good nose — he could tell what kind of kick a mix had just by smelling it. Though it wasn’t much of a way to get off.
The loft was above the Roll-a-Bowl-a-Ball Alleys on St. Clair West, and there wasn’t a lot of working space in it. Surrounding the table was a clutter of movie props, costumes, furniture, backdrops with minarets. The Nose figured the movie had been set in a casbah maybe, with belly dancers. A sex comedy or something. Then he decided it was more of a shoot-’em-up because he read the words on Perez’s T-shirt: LAST FLIGHT FROM ISTANBUL. SOON FROM HELITROPE STUDIOS. A thriller, maybe he’d catch it: he liked chase scenes.
Perez, yeah, he was in the movie business — what did they call him? — a gaffer. What he couldn’t figure out, these guys worked for Billy Sweet, so what were they doing playing around with his junk? Packaging it for quick sale, it kind of looked like.
On the table were a kitchen blender, a bag of lactose, a set of fine scales, a bunch of six-packs of Ramses safes, and a stack of film cans, sealed with tape on which was printed in big black letters: EXPOSED FILM! DO NOT OPEN! Hiltz and Perez were opening them, removing full freezer bags, dumping the powder into the punch bowl that the Nose couldn’t keep his eyes off.
“Listen, you wanna unload fast, cut down on the cut. Go easy on the additives, man.”
Hiltz gave him a mean look. He was family, a kind of brother, he and Normie the Nose had both been raised in the same foster home. Hiltz was heeled, carrying heavy weight, a .45 in a harness.
“Who said anything about unloading fast, Normie? We’re just doin’ the back end.”
“For Billy.”
“Yeah.”
“Sure. Sure you are.” The Nose smiled. He could be trusted.
Perez looked at Hiltz. The Nose figured a signal was passing, a question.
“He’s okay,” Hiltz said, and he turned on the blender. When it stopped they could hear Anne Murray again, still wanting that dance. The Nose thought he’d like to dance off into the night with that punch bowl.
Hiltz handed the Nose a spoon with a taste of the new mix in it. He sniffed, nodded, then made soup of it. He sucked it into his outfit, and searched for a place where the scar tissue wasn’t too stiff, and shot the spike home.
Perez and Hiltz watched him, waited.
“Isn’t she beautiful?” the radio said. “Old gold from Queen Anne. This is Night Country, 1350, all night long, cool country on a hot night in Hogtown. Comin’ up, the Pickens Brothers, but first a timely reminder . . .”
A roll and a boom. The Nose felt the room jiggle. Everything felt okay.
“Yeah, this has a better blast.” Smooth runway, he was soaring, fuck the world. “Yeah, yeah, I feel like I’m coming from every pore, man.” He felt the throttle ease, and he was in the gentle bobbing ocean, the waves lapping at him. “Levels off real good.”
Dreamily, he looked at the reel cans. Ten, twelve pounds of pure. They wouldn’t dare steal it all. He guessed Perez would tell Billy Sweet some of it went missing on the way, and he never figured out how.
“Yeah, that’s fine, that’s sweet. Dazzling.”
“He got off awful fast,” Perez said.
“Maybe it’s too rich now,” Hiltz said. “You think we oughta step on it a little more?”
“Hey, man,” said the Nose, “take my advice, step it up. Moves faster. It’ll all go in two, three days.”
Hiltz poured some of the new mix into one of the condoms, tied it with an elastic, and threw it hard at the Nose. “Take your ounce and go, Normie.”
“I got a couple of good connections.”
“We ain’t cuttin’ you in,” Hiltz said.
“Reason you guys might wanna unload quick is ’cause Billy Sweet might think you’re cuttin’ him out.”
“You say that on the street,” Perez said softly, “I’ll cut somethin’ outa you.”
The Nose pocketed his ounce, but he didn’t leave right away. He picked up one of the empty rubbers, rolled it out, played with it, felt its texture, smooth and creamy like sex, or what he remembered of sex. He rocked gently on his heels. An ounce. He wanted more.
Perez and Hiltz bent to their work. A rumble of a rolling ball. A strike. Distant shouts of triumph. The radio talked about the bargains in Car City.
***
Hollis Lamont and the boss were listening to a remote receiver unit in the back of a darkened van parked across the street from the Roll-a-Bowl-a-Ball.
“Sounds like they ripped Billy real good,” Lamont said.
“We should have put extra mikes in there. That radio makes it hard.”
They heard Perez: “Didn’t we say to split, Nose?”
They heard a sharp explosion.
***
In the loft, Normie, who had blown the empty condom to the size of a watermelon, had just pricked it with his syringe. Perez nearly fell of his chair, Hiltz went for his gun, then stopped, seeing the rubber dangling flaccid from the Nose’s hand, seeing his big grin
, his black, decaying teeth.
“You boys wanna shoot up, maybe ease the tension?”
“Get the fuck outa here, you ugly dumb shit!” Perez yelled.
The Nose drifted toward the door, still smiling, he couldn’t help smiling. It felt like he was floating, he wondered where his legs were. He washed out his ’fit in the sink, went behind a plywood partition where there was a toilet, and took a leak, mellow yellow, comforting.
He thought, maybe insist on one more bag, the price of silence. Ugly dumb shit, eh? Fuck ’em, maybe he should drop a dime on them, a friendly word to Billy Sweet. Billy would set him up for life.
The Nose zipped up, left the toilet, took one last fond look at the punch bowl full of magic powder, and slid back the latch on the door. He paused again. Maybe he should do a little jab more, enough to get him on the street, enough to get home on. He watched them work. Maybe he could wheedle a half out of them, just a half more.
“Hey, it’s Happy Hank Jones here for the next four hours, and here’s number eight, movin’ up with a bullet, Jimmy and Joey Pickens, ‘I’m Just Sick to Death of Lovin’ You, Betty-Sue . . .’”
A great force from the other side of the door pushed it inward, propelling the Nose face-first over a crate and into a stand-up wardrobe full of veils.
En route, he heard sounds like whump, whump, whump, and through the gauze of a pink veil he saw Perez, an astonished look on what was left of his face, and he saw the lights go out on that bloodied face. And he saw Hiltz fumbling for his .45, ducking, not ducking fast enough. Whump, whump.
Hiltz staggered, clawed at the table, and brought the punch bowl down on him, where the heroin formed a glutinous mix with the blood that pumped from his heart.
Street Legal Page 2