Flood (3 page)

She didn’t make a sound going down the stairs, but the red light on the desk glowed to tell me she was three steps from the middle of the staircase. Then another glowed to tell me she was three steps from the bottom. There’s a switch if I don’t want the staircase to be there anymore, but I didn’t put my hand near it. I heard the downstairs door open and close. That didn’t mean anything. I went to my office door, opened it, and pointed out into the corridor. Pansy trotted out the door and over to the staircase. I went back to my desk and watched the light. It stayed on. Pansy was holding her front paws on that third step from the middle, like she was supposed to. I waited, heard Pansy’s short bark of disappointment, and knew that Flood had actually left.

When I called Pansy she rolled back in the door, looking expectant. I went to the fridge again and got a big slab of steak. “You’re a good girl, Pansy. Yes, you’re a fine girl, a perfect friend, aren’t you?” She happily agreed as I tossed the steak through the air at her, saying “Speak!” This piece was so big she actually chewed it for a second or two before making it disappear. The best things never last.

I went over to the couch Flood had occupied, took off my shoes, laid back against one of the pillows, and closed my eyes.

3

WHEN I WOKE up, it was already getting dark. Pansy was looking at me like she was dying to go out, but I knew that was an act. The dog has the metabolism of a diesel engine—she doesn’t move fast but she can go for days and days without stopping. I let her out to the roof anyway, like I usually do at night. While she was upstairs, I set about putting together my props for the night’s work. Miss Flood wasn’t the only person of honor on this planet. When I bet that hundred with Maurice, I was really betting that she’d show with the money she’d promised. I won that bet, but I didn’t expect to be as successful at Yonkers as I was at reading human character. And Maurice would want his money tomorrow. My heart doesn’t run a heavy risk of stopping from overwork—I only use it for betting on horses.

Tonight there was a lovely three-year-old going in a C–3 pace who hadn’t won all damn year. But he was a colt by Armbro Nesbit, who held the track record. I was there the night he set it. Usually, I have a tremendous bias in favor of horses who run off the pace and then come from behind in the stretch, like I’m always telling myself I’m going to do someday. But Armbro Nesbit always rocketed to the lead, dictated the fractions, and just dared the other animals to come at him. After his four-year-old season, his people put him out to stud, and he only got two crops before he died in his stall. A lot of asshole horse-players laughed about how he must have died happy, but they don’t know anything. He didn’t die happy. The only way Armbro Nesbit would have died happy was on the front end of the mile, charging for home.

Anyway, this horse I bet on tonight was his son, and I wanted him to win. And I realized that I’d have to see Maurice in the morning if I wanted to keep that line of credit open.

When I got Pansy downstairs, I called Mama and learned that this James character hadn’t called back. I went into the closet next door to dress since I needed to look good for the night’s Murphy Game. I fingered my one silk shirt. I love that shirt—it’s from Sulka’s and it cost me a hundred and fifty dollars. The way it works with Sulka’s is that you go in and order a dozen shirts, so they treat you like a citizen. But you have to know up front that they won’t make you a dozen shirts until they get one that fits perfectly. So, when I had the money, I went up there and got fitted. The sample they made me up was this beautiful rose silk, with no pockets and french cuffs with my initials (“mb” for Mister Burke) on the left cuff. I paid for the one shirt (a class outfit, they didn’t raise their eyebrows at cash), and told them I’d be back in a couple of days to pick out the rest of the colors I needed. I never went back, of course. But I couldn’t wear that shirt for this game, so I found a nice blue oxford-cloth buttondown, a plain blue tie, and a dark blue pinstripe that fell off a rack in the garment district along with several others last year. All the department stores have my size—it’s called “shrinkage.” With my black brogans polished, I took an attache case from the closet floor and was ready to operate. I thought I’d stop by Mama’s if I got the chance, so I told Pansy I’d bring her something good when I got back.

I went down the stairs to the garage, put the gun back next to the transmission hump—at least I knew where
this
Cobra was—and hung the suitcoat neatly in the back so it wouldn’t wrinkle. I wanted to get to the Criminal Court before they started doing heavy business with the night arraignments.

It’s lucky the court’s not far from my office. I parked the car illegally in the back, put my PBA card that says “Attorney” on its embossed silver police shield on the dashboard, and flipped the switch in the glove compartment that would keep the car from moving even if some skell tried to steal it. Then I walked around to the front entrance, looking for Blumberg, Artuli or any of my regulars.

As I walked inside the marble-floored slime pit I spotted Blumberg in his usual position. He was leaning up against the information booth that hasn’t been occupied in years and trying not to look like what he is—a fat slob is what he is, but he isn’t any worse than Legal Aid for night court. Blumberg won’t try a case—but he’ll plead you fast and, all things being equal, plead you pretty well. His doughy face arranged itself into a smile when he saw me. “So, Burke, how’s the boy?”

“Got anything on tonight, Sam?”

“Well, my boy, I’m not sure. I did have this client call me and ask me to meet him here, but he didn’t give a name. He said he would recognize me.”

“From the front-page coverage of your last big trial, no doubt?”

“There’s no profit in hostility, Burke. You want to work tonight?”

“That’s why I’m here, Sam. The usual twenty-five percent?”

“Well, I’ll tell you, son. There are guys working for twenty now, and there’s one Spanish kid who works for ten, you know?”

“Yeah, I know. Listen, you want a yard in front, right? Okay, I’ll get you the whole yard, no percentage, and I keep everything over that. How’s that for a deal?”

“Burke, you’re sure you’re not Jewish? How about twenty-five percent up to two hundred, and a third after that?”

“Right. Look, I got to go to work. Try and at least
look
like a real lawyer for a couple hours, okay?”

He didn’t answer and I went to work.

You have to know who to look for—that’s always the game. Forget the hookers. They never have a dime anyway, and if they’re not already in the pens waiting for arraignment, they’re carrying some scumbag pimp’s money to pay another girl’s fines. And
real
poor people are a waste of time too, for obvious practical reasons. What you want is some lame who thinks a private lawyer is going to do more for him than Legal Aid—someone who thinks he’s got an image, even if he was busted for stealing welfare checks. But the best is some parent whose kid has just been arrested. Tonight I couldn’t wait for the best, just a fast hundred and out the door. Breaking my ass to get back to zero. The people inside the big building were all worried about getting a sentence—and here I was, already serving mine.

My first customers were a black couple—the man about forty-five, still wearing work clothes, and his wife, dressed up her Pentecostal best. I stood there looking like one hell of a lawyer, but they didn’t move. So I did. “Pardon me, sir, are you here for your son’s arraignment tonight?”

“Yes—yes, I am. Are you the man from the Legal Aid?”

A slightly sardonic laugh, “No sir, you’ll be able to recognize them easily enough. They’ll be the kids wearing blue jeans with the long hair. Just pick out the first one you see who doesn’t even
look
like a lawyer.”

From the woman, “Oh my God. Harry, do you . . .” As I turned and acted like I was walking away to some important business, the man lightly touched my sleeve: “Sir, excuse me, are you a lawyer?”

“No, I’m a private investigator. I work for Mr. Blumberg. You know,
Sam
Blumberg,”—like the fat man’s name should mean something to them. “I’m here tonight on a case with Mr. Blumberg, but I think his last motion to suppress was so effective that the charges will be dismissed, so I won’t have anything else to do.”

“We don’t have a private lawyer. The police said that Henry would have Legal Aid—we didn’t have to have one.”

That, of course, made me angry, and I let it show. “What a racist pig! What a terrible thing to say to you folks.”

“You mean it isn’t true?” the mother asks.

“Well, it’s true enough that your son will have Legal Aid
if
you don’t retain private counsel. But what the cops were really saying is that you’re probably on welfare and you couldn’t afford a real attorney.”

Harry said, “Man, I work. I got a
good
job. Had it for almost fifteen years. What kinda crap is this?”

“Well, sir, I can’t speak for the police, but you know as well as I do that they’d rather have you go with the Legal Aid so they have a better chance of convicting your son.”

“Yeah, that makes sense. Are there any private lawyers right here?”

“Well, Mr. Blumberg himself is here, on that case I told you about. If it doesn’t go forward, I’m sure he could accommodate you.”

“Is he expensive?”

“Well, sir, the best costs the most, as you know. But I also know that Mr. Blumberg is especially interested in young people, and what with you working and all, I’m sure something could be worked out. Of course, you’d have to have a retainer to pay him immediately so he could file a Notice of Appearance on your son’s behalf.”

Now the lady got back into the act. “How much would that be, mister?”

“Well, it generally runs about five hundred dollars, but Mr. Blumberg doesn’t expect people to walk around with that kind of money, the way crime in the streets is today.”

“Do you know how much he would take?”

“Well, I know he never takes less than two hundred, no matter what. But sometimes he’s lucky and the whole case can be disposed of in a single evening.”

Momma says, “Oh God, that would be wonderful. They been holding my boy in that jail ever since yesterday afternoon and—”

“Well, let me go and find Mr. Blumberg and I’ll get back to you, all right?”

“Thank you, yes.”

I was glad to accommodate them—they seemed like nice folks. Odds were that their kid would get held for the Grand Jury, and Blumberg would be filing his notice
For Arraignment Only,
but at least they’d have a private lawyer for their two bills. And it just might work out—who knew? This part of my work isn’t really a scam—the people are getting what they paid for. Besides, when it comes to making a quick deal, Blumberg can hang in there with the best of them. He pleads so many cases that he knows what they’re really worth, and he’s not going to let a kid cop to some outrageous nonsense. Sam doesn’t sit in on the games too long anymore, but he can still play a decent hand while he’s there. Anything’s better than some Legal Aid hippie who’ll make some halfass speech about racism or “the system” while the judge doubles the bail.

I quickly found Sam, told him the deal, closed it, brought the good people to him, watched the money change hands, and went along with him to file his notice. I braced him in the hallway, took my fifty bucks, and went back to work.

I told the black couple they should wait inside the courtroom for their kid to be brought up because it would look good to the judge to see them so concerned, and I split. I’m not pleading good Samaritan, but it was an honest dodge. They’d get a fair shake from the fat man.

Business was great that evening. A bullshit burglary charge that even Sam could get tossed was good for a yard and a half, fifty bucks from some character who kept mumbling about wanting a private lawyer so it wouldn’t be like the “last time” and a great score of three hundred from a Puerto Rican whose brother had been held for four days on an attempted murder charge. Sam was in heaven, and I cleared $183. I told him to keep the breakage on the last third (the three-hundred score) and that gave him orgasms.

A couple of hours of intense work and I had Maurice covered plus a good piece of change for the next couple of days. As I walked up to my Plymouth, I saw a couple of uniformed cops leaning against it. They checked my clothes, nodded at the car. “You on the job?”

I smiled at them. “No, private,” and they walked off in disgust. Nice guys.

4

I PUT THE key into the door, turned it twice right and once left to deactivate the alarm, and climbed inside. I just sat there for a minute; sometimes I go down to the garage and just sit in it, too. The car is a 1970 Plymouth that cost forty thousand dollars. It was supposed to be the ultimate New York City taxicab. It has independent rear suspension so even the West Side Highway doesn’t shake it up; a forty-gallon gas tank, fuel injection so it doesn’t stumble in traffic, a monster radiator with connecting tubes to cool the oil and transmission fluid so it can’t overheat, never-fade disc brakes all around, bulletproof Lexan instead of glass in all the windows, and bumpers that would turn a charging rhino. It weighs about two and a half tons, so it doesn’t get real good mileage, but when it was built that wasn’t a consideration. The kid who put it together told me this was the seventh version—he just kept doing it until he got it right. The super-cab was going to make him rich—rich enough so that wife of his could have everything she ever wanted. In the meantime, they went without everything—the cab was hungrier than a dope addict. All the kid did was drive a fleet cab and work on his prototype.

I got into the car when the kid hired me to watch his wife. He had the idea she was seeing someone else, and he got my name from Mama Wong, where he used to eat during his late shift. He told me there probably wasn’t anything to it, but he just wanted to be sure, you know. It didn’t take me long to find out what his wife was doing. She had a girlfriend in the same apartment house. I watched and listened for a few days, but I didn’t want to just go back and tell the kid his wife was making it with a woman—I figured there was more to the story.

I approached the wife one night while the kid was at work. I knew she always waited a couple of hours before she went upstairs to her girlfriend, so I just knocked on the door.

“Yes, who is it?”

“My name is Burke, ma’am. I’m here about your husband.”

She flung open the door, quick as a shot. She was wearing an old bathrobe, but her face was all made up.

“What is it? What’s happened? Is he . . . ?”

“Your husband’s okay, Mrs. Jefko. I’ve been doing some work for him and I have to talk to you about it.”

“Look, if it’s about that damn car, you’ll have to see him. I don’t—”

“It’s not actually about the car, ma’am. May I please come in for a minute?”

She looked me over carefully, shrugged, turned her back, and started walking toward the living room. I followed her but I walked past the entrance to the living room and sat down at the kitchen table. She fumbled for her cigarettes on top of the refrigerator and sat down facing me.

“Mrs. Jefko, I’m a private investigator. Your husband hired me to . . .”

“To fucking check on me, right? I knew he would. Marie said he would sooner or later.”

“Not to check on you, ma’am. He knew you were unhappy, and he thought that maybe something was wrong with you, something medical maybe, that you weren’t telling him about. He was concerned about you, that’s all.”

She started to laugh but she was out of practice. “Concerned about me. What a beautiful word—
concerned.
All he cares about is that fucking car and the millions and millions of dollars he’s going to make with it someday.”

“You know why he wants all that money, Mrs. Jefko?”

“No. I know why he
says
he wants the money. For me, right? What bullshit—he don’t care about me any more than I care about that car. He never talks to me, never looks at what I wear, doesn’t want to do nothing with me anymore. Marie says—”

“I know what Marie says.”

“How could
you
know? You got the phone tapped or something?”

“No, but I know what a recruiting pitch sounds like.”

“What’re you talking about?”

“Marie understands you, right? Marie knows you’re really a very sensitive person, with lots of undeveloped talent, right? Marie knows that you were meant for better things than sitting around this miserable apartment waiting for some grease monkey to come home. Marie knows your husband has all the sensitivity of a pig, right? He doesn’t even know how to make love, right? Just fuck.”

She just sat and looked at me. “Maybe all those things are true.”

I looked back at her. “Maybe they are, I don’t know. But I know that your husband loves you, that’s for sure. I know he could be something, and that he wants you to be too. But he don’t have a fighting chance against Marie, does he? He has to work.”

“Marie works too.”

“You know what I mean, Mrs. Jefko. This has got to end.”

“You can’t make me do anything—I have my own life—”

“I’m not telling you what to do—I’m saying this has to end. And you know it does too. Sooner or later your husband will find out—or you’ll move out to be with Marie, or something. I just mean it won’t go on like it has been.”

I looked at her face and I saw that she hadn’t been thinking that far ahead, although the odds were that Marie had. Then she asked me what she should do, and I said I didn’t know. I told her the only reason I was there was that I didn’t want to be the one to tell her husband, that I thought she could try again with him, maybe move to a different place. “Talk to someone, the two of you together. I don’t know. But something.”

“You don’t look like Dear Abby.”

“What do I look like?”

“You look like a nasty, cold man. And I think you should get out of my house.”

I thought so too. There wasn’t anything else I could say. I didn’t have the right words, and she understood that. I went back downstairs and back to my office. When I saw the kid a few hours later, I told him that his wife wasn’t involved with any other man as far as I could tell.

A couple of days later, he grabbed me outside of Mama Wong’s. He told me his wife had told him the whole story, even about me being there. His eyes looked bad, and he wanted to go in two different directions. “Mr. Burke, I know why you went to see her. You should have told me yourself. You ain’t no fucking marriage counselor. It’s my problem, and I can handle it.”

“All right, kid. I’m sorry.”

“Yeah, you’re sorry. You did it all wrong. You should have just told me.”

“Look, kid—”

“Hey, fuck you, okay? How much I owe you for the last work?”

“Two hundred.”

The kid looked at me, trying to make up his mind. He finally did. “Well, you can go scratch for that money, Burke. I ain’t paying you. You didn’t do your fucking job. How’s that?”

“Okay, kid,” I said, and just walked away. I knew he was staring after me but, like he said, I hadn’t earned the money.

Mama Wong got a letter for me from the kid a few weeks later. As soon as I saw the return address, I knew what had happened. I went to see the kid in the Tombs, wearing my nice pinstripe with an attache case full of file folders and business cards in case the guards wanted proof I was a lawyer. But they didn’t give a damn. They were holding the kid for homicide—his wife. He looked all right when they brought him down to the interview room, calm and relaxed, his hands full of documents. “Mr. Burke, my lawyer says I’m going to trial on this in a few weeks. I wanted to talk to you first.”

“What can I do now?”

“Nobody can do nothing now. I did what I had to do, what I thought was right. Just like you did—just like she did. I just got to clear something up first. About my car.”

“What about the car, kid?”

“I don’t want the lawyer to have it, okay? He already got paid too much by my father. My father don’t know any better—he wants me to cop to manslaughter or something, says I’ll only get a few years. I don’t want a few years.”

“You want me to investigate . . . ?”

“I don’t want you to do nothing, Mr. Burke. I understand a few things now. Not everything, but a few things—enough. I just want to get everything in order, make things right.”

“What things?”

“Those things that are left. Nothing ever would have worked out with Nancy anyway—I knew that, I guess. But if that scumbag lawyer gets my car . . .”

“What do you want, kid? I can’t just—”

“Here’s the title. I had my father send it over. I’m gonna sign it over to you. I owe you money anyway. Besides, you’ll
use
the car, won’t you? I mean, you’ll have it on the street, in your work, right? I don’t want them to sell my car at some lousy auction to pay that motherfucker.”

“Look, you don’t have to do this. You’re a young guy still. You can do the time. I know—I’ve been inside. It’s bad but it’s not impossible. There’s ways, things you can do. And then you can come out and finish the car.”

“The car is finished, Mr. Burke. It’s really been finished a long time, I guess. It never was the money, you understand?”

I do now, but I didn’t then. So the kid signed the car over to me, and I went and got it registered. I even found a guy who would insure me—no problem, just minimum coverage. That car doesn’t need collision insurance.

It wasn’t hard to figure what the kid was going to do. I didn’t say anything to anyone—he was a man and he was entitled to that much respect. Even the guards knew what was coming so they put him in a special cell, suicide-proof. It didn’t stop the kid. After all, he was a mechanical genius, they said. He hung up a couple of days later. I heard his lawyer was asking questions about the car, but they only found another 1970 Plymouth that the kid was cannibalizing for parts. That was a few years ago. I used to think about the kid every time I drove the car. Then no more until tonight, for some reason.