How fragile it all was.
I saw a woman on a rooftop. She wore a long brown overcoat. She stood at the edge of the roof. She had something in her hand. I couldn’t make out what it was. She didn’t move. She was thinking, too. She’d been hurt, like me. Hoping to take some solace from the view. Letting her imagination create a world from a detail on the horizon. Yes. That could be me. Living there. In that building, way up north. The thirty-third floor of that building there. There’d be children in that home. Happy, playing children. And paintings on the wall. And phone calls from friends. A life. A place.
A home that gave her more than pain and dread and solitude.
My father spoke to me.
A man did not give up.
I shook myself. I resolved to do my job. I had a client. My client needed me. He sure as hell needed somebody. Soldier on, I said. Be right. Be good. The rest will take care of itself.
I wasn’t sure I really bought into it. But I couldn’t resist it, either. I didn’t have much choice. I wasn’t suicidal.
I loved my misery too much to give it up.
I sat and thought.
Strange, I mused, that FitzGibbon would insist that I stay on. If he was involved in something, it could only mean he figured I was incompetent enough to cause no harm. Not beyond the realm of possibility. Though I
preferred other theories. That he wasn’t. That he could see that he needed a man of my sterling abilities to get his only natural son out of this mess.
The problem being, of course, that everything pointed to the opposite conclusion.
I gathered up my four-by-six index cards, with the scribbles and lines. I untacked them from the walls. I put them in my jacket pocket. I took the elevator down. I went out the revolving door. I walked down the avenue. I stopped at Michel’s. Last time I’d be there for a while. I sat at the bar. I had a steak. Onions fried in butter. Fuck cholesterol. A glass of Australian Shiraz. Another. Three. I placed the cards on the bar, in groups of five. I looked at them. I read the words. I followed the lines. I wrote in the margins. I drew more lines. I’d stolen some colored pens from the office supply closet. A man of action thinks ahead.
When I got bored with the colored pens, I made a list:
Larry Silver is dead.
His body was found in an alley three blocks from Jules’s loft; blunt trauma to the head; his body had been covered with a cardboard box.
The perp was probably right-handed, and Larry was probably sitting down when he got whacked.
Jules is right-handed.
He smokes my brand.
Larry Silver was a lowlife and a snake, a penny-ante drug dealer, a small-time scam artist with pretensions to more.
In other words, he probably deserved what he got.
Jules is a bit of a nutcase; he disfigures himself; has some kind of samurai fetish; might be suicidal.
He has a girlfriend, Lisa; she is a nutcase too.
But rather sexy, in a tiny green-eyed junkie kind of way.
She has a dragon tattoo.
Jules has a lion tattoo.
Absolutely nobody is telling me the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.
But then, isn’t that always the case.
I thought. I pondered. I came to a conclusion.
I didn’t know a fucking thing.
I DRIFTED IN AND OUT OF SLEEP
. I stayed suspended in that dreamy state. To live a half-life, suspended between dream and blissful blank sleep, alive and not alive, I mused. Maybe death was something like this. Dreaming, I thought, not for the first time, might be practice for the afterlife.
I finally dragged myself out of bed. Out of the house. It was closer to eleven o’clock than ten. I felt vague and dirty.
At the corner, waiting for the light to change, I remembered. Where was I going?
Things were different now.
I walked back to the house. I sat on the couch.
It made me uncomfortable. It was someone else’s couch.
I got up.
I sat in the armchair.
I considered the options.
I couldn’t go to work. I couldn’t stay in the house. The ghosts would suck me dry.
There was only one option. I packed up the laptop. I stuffed my index cards into the computer bag.
I went to Starbucks.
I was surprised to find one of the big plush armchairs free. I plugged in the laptop. I set my papers on the chair. To discourage interlopers. I went to the counter. I ordered a tall skinny latte. I smiled at the fellow at the cash. I cooed at some babies in strollers. I nodded at my fellow laptop geeks. I eavesdropped on some chatter from the three girls studying for the bar exam. I took my coffee to my chair. I fired up the computer. I thanked the Lord for wireless access. I checked my voice mail, e-mail. Nothing urgent. I opened the
Times
. I sat back. I looked around.
Hey, I thought. This isn’t half bad. I could get used to it.
I was halfway through the
Times
when the laptop beeped. E-mail. I opened it up. It was from a name I didn’t recognize. There was an attachment. Virus warnings went off in my head.
My cell phone rang. I picked it up. It was Butch.
Don’t delete it, he said.
What?
Download it.
Okay.
Butch hung up.
I downloaded the attachment. Opened it up. PDF files. I took a look. Scanned documents. Old. It didn’t take me long to recognize them. The trust file.
Shit. Had to love that Butch.
I spent a few hours reading musty documents. Without the must. This time I had the luxury. It was my only case. What else was I going to do? I plowed through it all. Every page. Every dusty word of every convoluted clause of every will and trust deed, until I got back to the FitzGibbon trusts again. ‘Twenty million dollars to his issue, upon reaching their maturity.’ An old-fashioned word, ‘issue.’ Babies issuing from the womb. Women as vessels. From which issued the fathers’ progeny. Very quaint. I could hear the protests, if someone used it now.
I called Dorita. Gave her my new office address. She said she’d come by later. But only after five. She had stuff to do.
Damn. Stuff to do. Never thought I’d feel a twinge of jealousy at those words.
I was edgy. All those lattes. I didn’t want to leave my comfy chair. Some pregnant woman would purloin it, the second I got up. But I had to get out of there. Take a walk. Air out the pores. Come back at five. Where to go, though?
Might as well drop in and see how the client’s doing. Sure. Why not?
Jules was there. I was a little disconcerted. I didn’t really have anything to talk to him about. I didn’t want to ask directly about another sibling, the phone records. I wanted to do some more research first. Never ask a question you don’t know the answer to. Besides, I thought, suddenly seized with fear, what if Lisa had made up some story? Exaggerated my role in her attempted seduction? Made him hate me, because I’d pushed her away, or for whatever twisted reason? Who knew the depths of the female mind? I’d be another pawn in a new and different Futterman game.
I thought of going home.
Jules opened the door. Turned his back on me. Sprawled on the couch.
Everything seemed normal.
I sighed a provisional sigh of relief.
So, Jules said, you solve the case, lawyer guy?
No. But I’ve learned a few things.
Spit it out.
He had a new and disconcerting arrogance to him.
Nothing I’ve confirmed, I said, warily.
Jesus, he said. I think I’ll tell Dad to stop paying you.
Are you talking to him?
No.
Then that’ll be a little tough.
I have my ways.
More power to your ways, I said. You got a beer?
Jules snorted. In a you-got-me-there kind of way. Went to the fridge.
I took this to be an excellent sign.
He brought me an Anchor Steam. One for himself. He sprawled back on the couch.
You seem very relaxed, I said.
Shouldn’t I?
For a guy charged with murder.
He fixed me with a stare.
I didn’t do nothing, he said. Why should I be worried?
No reason. Kind of a stressful experience, though, I would think.
I guess, he said, taking a pull off the beer.
Smoke? he said, pulling out a pack of my favorites.
I took one. He lit them both.
Something had happened. The lost boy in him had vanished.
I drank my beer. Tried to bond a bit. Talked a bit about the Rangers.
The atmosphere was as conducive as it was going to get. I plunged in.
Listen, I said, there’s one thing.
Yo, brotha.
I was talking to the ADA. You know, the Assistant District Attorney?
Yo, you think I’m stupid?
Actually, no. I think you’re a very bright guy, Jules. I just wanted to make sure you knew what I was talking about.
I always know what you’re talking about, lawyer guy, he said, taking a good haul off the beer.
He told me about some phone records, I lied.
He gave me a straight-ahead look.
Calls from your cell phone.
And?
To your father’s office.
Silence.
Four or five of them. In the days before Larry Silver’s murder.
Jules narrowed his eyes. Looked straight at me.
And?
Well, given how you and your dad don’t seem to be talking to each other and all, the ADA thought it was a little strange.
Strange. Yes. Strange.
He took another big slug off of his beer.
Whose side did you say you were on? he asked.
Jules. You don’t seem to be getting it. I’ve tried to explain to you. I’m your lawyer. I’m on your side. All the way. No questions asked. But if I’m going to do my best for you, if I’m going to defend you to the best of my abilities, I can’t be flying in the dark. I need the facts. I need all the facts. Then I can take the facts and turn them into a story that the ADA will buy. I can’t be going to him with a ‘Shit, I don’t know what that’s all about.’ Because then he’ll be making up his own story. The story he makes up might not be so good for you. And I’m telling you, Jules, right now. That’s just what his story’s looking like. Not too damn good.
Jules laughed.
Sure, dude, he said. I hear ya.
He still seemed way too calm. I waited.
Nothing.
The preliminary hearing’s in two weeks, I said.
He looked at me.
I’d gotten his attention, at least.
You seen that show? he asked. The one with the puppets making phony phone calls?
Uh, yeah. I’ve seen the commercials for it, anyway.
It got me some ideas. Call up the old man. Get him a little crazy.
Ah. I see.
Just fooling around with the old fart. Yeah. I get it.
I was lying again. I didn’t get a thing. I certainly didn’t believe his lame-ass story.
Okay, I said. Just wanted to check that out.
Sure. No sweat.
I got up to leave.
The street outside was cold and empty. I wondered. What had turned Jules from scared and confused to this caricature of cool? He and Daddy were somehow in cahoots in this thing? Jesus. But that couldn’t be. It conflicted with just about every other piece of evidence I had.
THERE WAS A POKER GAME
that night. I resolved to go. I resolved to be a man. I resolved to win.
I called Butch. He was into it.
It was at a social club in Hoboken, across the river. Neon sign in the frosted window. Hudson County Men’s Club. Peephole in the door. A big lunk with a homemade haircut opened it.
We’re here for the poker game, I said.
The Lunk nodded, opened the door.
We walked in.
It was a picture from long ago. Linoleum floors. Hideous fluorescent light struggling through decades of dust and dead flies. Wooden fold-up chairs. Mary Mother of Jesus on the wall. In the corner the regulars were playing gin rummy. Beefy unsmiling guys with a lot of black hair and a way with a lead pipe.
They ignored us.
I wondered how Mike had talked his way into this place.
I didn’t ask. No percentage in it.
I sat down. Everyone was there. Butch. Mike. Straight Jake. Drunk Jake. Andrea. Jonesie. Even the Dane had made an appearance. I smiled and shook his hand. He gave me a sheepish nod. I realized that he had been more mortified than me. He’d stayed away the last few games out of embarrassment.
It goes to show. There’s always someone more fucked up than you.
I played aggressive. I jammed the pot. I bluffed like hell. I hooded my eyes and glared the others down, my head slightly tilted in contempt. I said little. I drank a lot. I had no qualms. I had no inhibitions. I didn’t care. I was doing it for my father, my brother, my self-respect.
I won and kept on winning. I could see the dismay grow on their faces.
Butch ran out of high fives. He ran out of cash.
I can’t compete, man, he said.
He called a cab.
It made me strong. They’d never seen a thing like this. I was in the zone. The slightest sign of weakness I could smell as clear as rotting fish. I pounced on it. I smelled the strong hands too. I picked up cues. I folded in odd places. I showed my rags when I’d jammed them out of a pot. I showed my Aces when I folded them to a straight. I had them on the run. Confusing. Unpredictable. Dangerous.
Andrea was losing too, like all the rest. But her dismay turned gradually to admiration. She leaned over, joked about the new aggressive me. I could smell the sexuality as strongly as the cards. I’d become a dog. A wolf. A snake. A door was opened to a new and feral world. My nether regions stirred.
My God, I thought. I’ve become a man again.
I won the last pot too. It was inevitable. It was a rush for the ages. I gathered up the cash. I stuffed it in my pockets, inside, out. I’d taken everybody’s money. They looked at me with awe. They weren’t angry. They were amazed. My pockets bulged. I grabbed Drunk Jake around the neck, dragged him into the night.
IN THE STREET
the cold air hit me in the face like a slap from an angry woman. The temperature had taken a dive. A sharp wind was howling up the street. A rusted fire escape was twisting with it, making strangely beautiful metal music. I wanted to shout to the heavens. I wanted to challenge the Gods to a chess game.