by Brian Deer
“Okay, I can do that. Then I’ll call you later and let you know.”
“No. Don’t do that. Do not even think of calling me. Not before tomorrow. No. I don’t want to know about any of this. Do not call me. You got that? You don’t call anyone till tomorrow. Midday earliest. No phone calls, WhatsApps, texts, emails. No pictures of your cock up her ass. Nothing. And then don’t say anything interesting.”
That sounded pretty definite.
“And you don’t tell nobody neither.”
“No sir.”
“Do not. Not the old girl. No one. Don’t even park outside the apartment. Park way down the street, or round a corner someplace. You get down and dirty, and we’re all mighty happy for you. You come up short… You draw a blank there…”
“I won’t.”
Hoffman restored his fingers between his eyes. “What I’m saying’s if you do, and the scene goes bad on you, what you do is… What you do is… Okay… You go to the window of that pretty third floor apartment of hers… And here’s what you do… You open a drape… Should be dark by then. Three windows in the living room, right? Facing Missouri?”
The general counsel must have been to Potrero Hill.
“Not been inside.”
“Trust me. You open one of those. One’s enough. Open a curtain.”
“What? You want me to open a curtain?”
“You listening in the back there? You open one of those green drapes she’s got. Shut them first if they’re still open when you get there. You do not call me. You don’t call anyone or send anything. In fact, keep your phone off from now.”
“Okay.”
“And if she don’t wrap her legs round you, like you expect—and I don’t expect—you open one of those drapes, and you get the hell out of there. Okay? Two minutes. Five minutes, max.”
“What, just walk out on her?”
“Say you got a text. Say the old girl’s having a nervous breakdown. Your cat’s got leukemia.”
“Isn’t my phone off?”
“I think… Yeah, right… Okay… It’s okay till then. You can turn it on till then. But after that, turn it off. Don’t forget. And no more than five minutes, max, to be out of there. You drive to your hotel, and you eat dinner in the restaurant. Nothing more, nothing less. Then go to the bar till it closes, and then hang around a while in the lobby.”
“What? So, what, I open a curtain and go to the Hyatt?”
“Eat dinner, go to the bar, and hang around somewhere public.”
“And what if I…?”
“What if you fuck her?” Hoffman laughed. “Better make us a damn good video.”
Twenty-seven
LUKE RONSON leaned forward on his associate-grade desk at the law offices of DePaul & Furbeck. It was catch-up time on the James Mellerman defense: a defense that would be no pushover. He gazed at the cop’s grounds for stopping his client, last reviewed Sunday in bed.
Weaving and drifting.
Signaling inconsistent with driving actions.
Accelerating and decelerating with no clear intent.
Driving 15 mph below speed limit.
After the stop on the Eisenhower, Trooper Beoletto noted Mr. Mellerman had bloodshot eyes, slurred speech, and dropped his driver’s license. He made three errors on the walk-and-turn, breathalyzed at .18 blood-alcohol, and was alleged to have remarked with regard to his adult passenger, “You’d be DUI with this asshole.”
Luke checked his watch: 22:12 Central. He’d worked late to forget Mario’s news. But from the moment his friend left the apartment this morning, frustration had grown by the hour.
Twelve hours back was the firm’s Thursday meeting, which considered a refurbishment scheme. Eleven of sixteen partners and twenty of twenty-five associates spent fifteen minutes considering who was entitled to vote on the proposals, another ten debating whether helter-skelter or lemon splash was appropriate for bathroom walls, and three minutes (when they were technically adjourned) approving a $40,000 spiral staircase from the front desk up to the library.
This afternoon was worse: a bunch of rich kids in dispute with some scumbag landlord. The guy was pressing for eviction after they complained to the building inspector over seven city code violations. “Twenty minutes court time,” Luke reassured them. “Retaliatory Eviction Act, 765 Illinois 720, section 1. Chicago residential landlord and tenant ordinance 5-12-150.” But they insisted they were entitled to a jury trial and proposed he represent them pro bono.
He scrolled the Mellerman file on his desktop screen and clicked a link labeled “Discovery.” In search of any patterns of unseemly behavior (and to generally piss the Illinois State Police), he’d forced disclosure of Beoletto’s arrest reports for fifteen days either side of the stop.
Luke tapped PgDn… PgDn… PgUp…
Then his cellphone vibrated on the desk.
HE HEARD the beat of rock, the click of hazard flashers, and the rumble of a bus on the street. He shut the Mellerman file and sagged back in his chair as the man spilled the latest news.
“I want to ask you something, can I? That okay? Something seriously weird’s going down here.”
Rock. Hazard flashers. Another bus passed. Luke was the listener, as usual. His gaze drifted to a painting above his associate-grade sideboard, in bright, thick-as-toothpaste acrylics. It was a portrait of himself at the US Supreme Court, with a hand outstretched to make a point. Of course, he never did that, but once dated an artist—until the curse of his roommate struck.
“Okay, so they send me out to San Fran, right? About some fuckup with that trial Mario’s on. Right? Basically, there’s this foxy doc complaining about her boss being a racist homophobe, and shit about volunteer retention. Okay?”
“Uh-huh.”
“A few protocol violations. Right? And now the company’s doing what they call ‘source data verification’ to check it’s all on the up and up.”
Luke hadn’t eaten, and the fridge at home was empty. He’d stop at Five Guys and pick up a burger.
“But anyhow,” Ben went on. “There’s some seriously heavy shit going down, and it’s knocking me dead trying to figure it out. It’s like being stuck in a dark room with some big fucking elephant.”
“That’s the doc?”
“Fuck off. I’m over that one. No, what it is, is she’s got a tie-in with some Japanese operation, Sanomo, and Hoffman figures she’s into something pretty sneaky with them. So, he’s got one of his people leaving a package in their guy’s hotel room.”
The trouble with burgers is you wonder about the fat. They’re filling enough, sure. But are they healthy? “Probably a bribe. Typical biotech conduct.”
“Wasn’t a bribe, I can tell you.”
Luke sat on his desk and looked down on North LaSalle, currently closed to traffic. Two weeks back, a marble slab fell off the building, and liability remained unresolved. He wouldn’t go to Five Guys. He’d stop by the supermarket and get some type of chicken with salad.
“It’s all pretty confusing. I mean, she’s been fucking with this Sanomo guy. I know that for a fact. Total fact. But now, right the next day, she’s hitting on me like a blind dog in a pie factory.”
“And the problem is?”
“Alright, it’s this guy Hoffman. He’s real interested in all this, and he says, well, if she doesn’t get naked, I’ve got to do something weird.”
“Got the right man.”
“No, listen bro. I’m going over there now. And Hoffman says if we don’t fuck—that’s me and her—I’ve gotta do this thing with the drapes.”
“Man, that’s so West Coast.”
“He says, what he says is, if she doesn’t spread her legs, I’m to open one of the drapes. Yeah?”
Luke groaned. “No, you got that part wrong. He means if she does spread her legs you open the drapes.”
“No. Definitely he said if she doesn’t. If we don’t fuck—repeat don’t fuck—then I’
m to open a curtain and leave the apartment. And go to my hotel and eat dinner.”
Luke vaulted from the desk and pressed his forehead against the window. Bad memories of Ben had flickered lately. Ben in ninth grade with thirty bucks he’d collected for a nonexistent religious foundation. Ben on Luke’s bed marking cards with his nails before poker with Jad and the band. Ben during his scam to unload… What did he say? “Fuck it man, what did you say?”
“I said…”
“I heard what you said. That’s an alibi. This guy’s fixing you with an alibi.”
“I don’t think so. Yeah, well, I guess possibly something along those lines. Possibly. Maybe. I’m not sure. Hard to say.”
“So… You’re saying, what? This lady’s complaining about the pivotal trial for that vaccine they want to license. Yes? A vaccine that probably doesn’t work.”
“Does work. At the population level. Sixty percent efficacy, minimum.”
“You’re there to flash your big ol’ dick at her. Am I right? And if she doesn’t take your nineteen point six centimeters, verified by an attorney at summer room temperature, you open the drapes and get yourself an alibi?”
“You’ll never let that go, will you?”
“Earth to Pudge. Earth to Pudge. Have you entertained the possibility they intend harm to this lady? Serious—physical—harm?”
“Come on bro, do me a favor here. You’re always so over-the-top about everything.”
“So, what’s this Hoffman guy’s interest in whether you fuck her or not? Does he want to watch? I could get that. Sure, open the curtains, let’s all see you go at her. But you’re saying here something like if you fuck, she’s cool. Yeah? And if you don’t fuck, she’s in with some Yakuza outfit. Am I right?”
“Look, I know this whole thing sucks. I know that. Lot of compromise going down here. Ethical dilemmas. But it’s happening, yeah? Listen, I’m stuck in the middle of all this, and I don’t know what the fuck it’s about.”
“Man, what you got into this time?”
“Just trying to get through this assignment they gave me. Dinner and a fuck and a pay raise.”
“So, why don’t you call him up if you don’t fuck her? Use the phone? You know, c-e-l-l? What’s with the drapes thing?”
“Said he didn’t want me to call anyone before tomorrow. Very definite about that. Turn off my phone and everything. Shouldn’t be calling you now. I’m taking a big risk here even telling you about it.”
“Yeah, and you know why? Because he doesn’t want any call data logged through the cellular networks. I say, ‘Hello? Anybody home?’”
The traffic got louder. “Yeah, well this guy’s pretty regular. He’s not gonna be tied up with much. He’s the company’s general counsel for fuck sake.”
“And he’s the guy talking about Henry Louviere. Am I remembering all this correctly?”
“Well…”
“Am I right?”
“It’s pretty confusing.”
“You think so?”
“Yeah, well I’m not doing the drapes thing, anyhow. That’s not gonna happen. We’re gonna have a cool and, dare I say, intimate evening. I can tell. Which means it’s no problemo, buddy. I mean, I practically saved her life in DC.”
“You what?”
“Chill out. Take your finger out your ass. I’ll find a way to keep everyone happy here. She was practically sitting on my face this afternoon.”
“And what if you don’t? What if you don’t fuck her? They break her legs? They throw her off the Bay Bridge? What happens then?”
“If I don’t? Hey, this is me.”
“Man, sounds like this thing’s right out of control. Sounds like you’re getting suckered into something pretty fucking deep here.”
“You think?”
“Listen to me now, Ben. Listen. Please. This is for your own good, trust me now. Forget everything else now. Listen. What you need to do now is hang up, start the car, drive to the airport, and get the fuck out of there. Get out. Go now. Tonight.”
Twenty-eight
SUMIKO’S VOICE echoed from somewhere in the apartment. And Ben heard the rattle of a keyboard. He stood in his white DePaul & Furbeck T-shirt and baggy blue surf shorts at the top of a flight of stairs from the street.
“You hungry?” she called.
“Not immediately.”
“Me neither.”
Along a hardwood corridor lined with framed black-and-white photographs, he counted five rooms. To his left: the kitchen, now golden at sunset, with a shoulder-height refrigerator and a pair of French doors slid back to a plank deck and fire escape. Ahead: a bathroom and two main rooms. And a bedroom—far right—took the corner of the apartment, overlooking both Twentieth and Missouri.
Sumiko appeared in a loose green T-shirt printed “Extinction Rebellion” across her breasts. She scurried to the kitchen, called “You want a beer?” and grabbed two bottles of Kirin. He followed her to a sparsely furnished, hard floored, living room with three windows looking east toward the bay. Each was flanked by billowing green curtains, open to the fading light.
“Tah-dah,” she exclaimed. “What you think of my reef?” By the door bubbled a spectacular aquarium.
He squatted beside it: maybe three feet long, with a drystone wall of plant-choked rocks and a shipwrecked Spanish galleon. She pointed out species: a bulbous brown tang, skulking behind a green leather coral; a purple-and-yellow royal gramma, its mouth gaping wide; a dusky jawfish, fanning its fins. Then she identified her latest: a pair of Banggai cardinalfish, with thick vertical black and silver stripes.
“Those are new.” She crouched beside him. “There were three till Tuesday. But one died.”
In addition to the T-shirt, she wore a pair of gray sweatpants flashed with a white Nike swoosh. The same bangles she’d sported in DC jingled. She squatted so close she touched his shoulder.
“They’re an endangered species in the wild,” she said. “You’ve got to keep the salinity around eight and the temperature a virtually steady eighty Fahrenheit. It’s not that easy at all.”
As she talked, one of the cardinalfish circled its companion, as if inspecting every black and silver scale. When it reached the other’s eyes, it gave a funny kind of shimmy, then swam round the back and did the same.
She sank to her knees. “You think something’s going on?”
He sat cross-legged. “Which one’s Frank?”
“The book says they do this when they’re mating. Or least when they’re getting ready to mate.”
“Now you’re talking.”
“According to the book, the male squirts its sperm on the eggs and then takes them in its mouth for incubation.”
“Got a buddy goes to places like that.”
The first fish shimmied. Sumiko’s elbow brushed his own. He didn’t foresee a need to play with drapes.
She shifted position, turned her back to the aquarium, and joined him cross-legged on the floor. “Now where’s my beer?” She crawled to a rug: deep blue and shaggy. “Maybe we should feed them. Hard to know.”
Her T-shirt hung free as she returned to the tank. Two items of clothing. Three max.
He laid a hand on the floor and their elbows touched again. “You think they got food on their mind?”
She must have felt the contact of skin with skin. “Should we let them be alone?” she said. “I wonder?”
“Cool T-shirt. Get it on Amazon?”
“Caught me out there. I did.”
“Cotton, is it?”
“Hundred percent, I think.”
“Pre-shrunk?”
“I’d think so.”
“You can sometimes tell before you wash it, if you look very closely at the fibers.”
“I didn’t know that. How?” She tugged at the cloth, tightening the fit across her breasts. Then she pressed her shoulders back: even tighter.
He didn’t plan the moment, but it seemed so ri
ght. Every instinct yelled out what she wanted. He’d not been in the apartment for fifteen minutes, but the tension was driving him crazy. He raised his right hand and ran his fingers against her shirt. The cotton yielded, soft, to his touch.
“Pre-shrunk.”
She allowed it for seconds… processing… processing… then leaned away and reached for her beer.
SHIT. FUCK. That shouldn’t have happened. He was sure she was up for it. Certain. He looked at her eyes, but she turned from his gaze, stood, and switched on a ceiling light. She half-closed the windows, pulled shut the curtains, and dropped onto a blue-and-white settee.
He rose and sat beside her. But not too close. “So, you wanted to review the situation?”
She fingered her Kirin. “That’s right. I’ve been thinking about those things at the center. What Trudy Mayr found. Wilson must have known about those forms.”
Jesus. Back to that. This was looking less hopeful. A minute ago, he was sure she was cool. “But, I mean, Doc Mayr told you in DC he was all washed up. So, you’ve already won. Forget about the guy. Be happy.”
“Yes. But how do we know? Maybe she’s only saying that. Maybe she’s only here to placate me till she gets her vaccine approved on Monday.”
“She did find the SPIRE forms, I’d point out. I was there, remember? I saw her. You heard it yourself.”
“Yes, I know. But that won’t be all of it with Wilson. Not by a long shot.”
“Fair enough, if you think so. Okay. But she’s worried too. You saw that. And I guess if she’s not on the level then I’m not either? I’d have to be in on it, wouldn’t I? Is that what you think?”
She turned her head and looked straight at him. And what a look. What a look. She shot the stare of a Bangkok ladyboy. “No, I don’t think that. I don’t think that at all. You’re too real to be anything but honest.”
He stretched his right arm along the back of the settee. Maybe he misread her. Confusing. He extended two fingers and tapped her shoulder. “Look, I really want to help you here. Take account of your requirements. I want us to do whatever makes you happy.”