Authors: William Lashner
“You bastard,” she said when she realized what it was. “You subpoenaed me.”
“Yes, I did.”
“How could you? How dare you?”
“You told me that I should save Chet’s butt. That’s exactly what I’m going to do.”
“I won’t go. I’m not going.”
“If you don’t go, sweetheart, you’re going to end up in jail.”
“Fuck you.”
I leaned over again to kiss her on the cheek, but she backed away from me as if I were about to rip her flesh with my teeth. So instead I gave her a light chuck on the arm and left her apartment for good.
From the huge window in her elevator, as it dropped slowly, I could see the empty plaza and the cobbled street beyond. It was still raining, pouring. Across the city old men, dazed by too much alcohol and life, were snoring. I turned up the collar of my raincoat and dashed out into the
plaza. When I reached the street I looked first right, then left. I saw the car, an old gray Honda Accord, a short way down the street, parked in front of a little coffee store. I ran to it. The door opened and I ducked inside.
“An umbrella, Victor,” said Sheldon Kapustin. “It’s a relatively new invention, but very handy on nights like tonight.”
“Where’s Morris?”
“My father hasn’t spent all night on a stakeout since the Rosenbluth jewelry heist of ’seventy-eight. Did he ever tell you about that one?”
“No.”
“He will. It’s his favorite story.”
“She’s in there. Pretty, shoulder-length brown hair, about five six, thin. She’s wearing a navy blue overcoat. She’ll be carrying a black suitcase. She didn’t pack much, and practically no cosmetics, so I don’t expect she’ll be going far.”
“Is there a back entrance?”
“Only an emergency exit with an alarm. No, if she comes out she’ll come out here. I just want to know where she is. If she’s about to get on a train or a plane stop her and then let me know immediately. I’ll get a U.S. marshal on her.”
“Sure thing.”
“What about Corpus Christi?”
“Just so happens, Victor, the number I spotted is a pay phone next to a marina. We sent a picture down to someone we trust to check it out.”
“Let me know.”
He nodded. “You want a ride home?”
“I’ll find a cab,” I said. “You just keep your eye on her.”
“If she’s as pretty as you say, Victor, that won’t be a problem.”
The rain was falling into my collar and down my back
as I walked along Market Street looking for a cab. By the time I found one I was so wet it didn’t matter. I sat in the rear, rainwater puddling on the vinyl seat, and leaned my head back. I wanted to sleep is what I wanted to do. I was tired, too tired to even lift my head. I thought about stripping off my soaking clothes and standing in a hot shower and collapsing onto my pillow and sleeping. But I didn’t have the time. What I had to do was strip off my clothes and take a cold shower and spend the night with my trial notes and my law books and prepare myself to devastate the inevitably self-serving and perjured testimony of James Douglas Moore.
I WAS WORKING AT MY
red Formica dining table, preparing for Moore’s examination, when my doorbell rang. The table was covered with documents and yellow pads and books, Mauet’s
Fundamentals of Trial Technique,
Wellman’s
The Art of Cross-Examination,
Appleman’s
Successful Jury Trials,
my copy of the
Federal Criminal Code and Rules,
but even with all that help I was getting nowhere. And then my doorbell rang. It was after 10:00
P.M.
and no one should have been ringing my bell after 10:00
P.M.
I remembered that the last time my bell had been rung late at night I had found Veronica on my doorstep. That would be serious trouble, I thought, but I couldn’t help but also remember the feel of that last kiss and know that I still wanted more.
In a T-shirt and jeans I slipped cautiously down the steps and peered into the vestibule. Outside, it was still raining. I could see a woman in a raincoat standing in the vestibule, staring back out to the street. My throat closed down on me for a moment and then she turned around.
“Beth,” I said as I ripped open the door. “God, come in, Beth.”
She stepped into the hallway, her hair flat against her head, her raincoat dripping. She looked closely at my face as if in doubt as to what she would find there. “I heard about what happened in court today,” she said. “How you went after that witness.”
I nodded. “The good reverend. Well, my client seems to have discovered that he was being betrayed.”
“How did he discover that?”
“Somehow, and I’m not saying how, but somehow I got hold of a document from Prescott’s office that spelled it out.”
“And you gave it to him?”
“He’s my client.”
She smiled cautiously. “So I assume then, Victor, your future will not be taken care of by William Prescott III. What about those horrible Bishop brothers?”
“I’ve been fired,” I said. “And the
Saltz
settlement’s been pulled.”
Her smile widened. “My oh my. How are we ever going to make ends meet now?”
“We?”
“The news said that Moore would be on the stand tomorrow. I thought you might want help preparing your cross.”
“What about Community Legal Services?” I asked. “What about aiding the poor and disadvantaged?”
She shook her head at me and then reached around my waist, giving a crushing hug. The wet of her raincoat soaked cold through my T-shirt. “That’s what I’m doing, Victor,” she said. “And frankly, sweetheart, you can use all the aid you can get.”
She disentangled herself from me and headed up the stairs. I looked after her for a moment. So it wasn’t all bad, I thought as I watched her climb to my apartment. Even if everything else turned out wrong, it wasn’t all bad.
We worked. Beth’s mind was more analytical than mine and she helped me organize my disparate thoughts and far-flung tactics. Together we began to map out a strategy for going after the councilman, a thrust here, a trap there, questions emphasizing two facts that when brought together were blatantly inconsistent. We outlined generally the
approaches I would take and then practiced on each other, framing our questions with great care to avoid the inevitable evasiveness of his answers. And where before Beth arrived I had been at a total loss, as we worked together the examination began to form itself into something more than a series of unconnected questions, to form itself into a coherent and effective assault on his credibility.
I was stretching from weariness, shaking my head at how much more we had to do, when the phone rang.
“So how do you think the old lady looked?” said Chuckie Lamb from the other end of the connection. His voice was subdued, not a bark anymore, but the sound of it still sent a shiver through me.
“I didn’t mean to bother her,” I said.
“How do you think she looked?” he said again, more insistent.
“Pretty good, Chuckie.”
“Yeah, but you should have seen her when. She was a beauty when. A real beauty.”
“I’m sorry if…”
“She was the queen of the neighborhood,” he said, cutting me off before I could finish apologizing for my visit. “And classy too. The windows in our house, they came from up and down the street to see her curtains, from blocks around. She was artistic, she loved the opera. That’s what we listened to, after my father left, all the time. It was great after my father left because he was a fuck and after he left then it was just Mommy and me. She was a beauty, I’m telling you.”
“I believe it,” I lied. I couldn’t imagine that toad-faced woman with her working gums as a bathing beauty. Beth was staring up at me, wondering what was going on. I shrugged like I had no idea, which I didn’t.
“Once in the fourth grade,” said Chuckie, “there was some kid beating the hell out of me. A Jewish kid, Levi, the school bully. Just whaling on me.”
Good for Levi, I thought.
“When Mommy finds out she comes to the playground after school and lifts this Levi by his collar, this big kid hanging in the air, and she tells him he touches me again she’d bite his nose off. He pissed himself, he was that scared. Levi never bothered me again. On her way out of the park she slugs me with the back of her hand, knocks me down, gives me a beautiful shiner. I never got razzed as a momma’s boy because of the way she hit me. How could they after that, and she knew it, too. That was her way, always taking care of me. She’s getting better every day, I can tell. She’ll be home soon. Making me her shepherd’s pie, putting Wagner or Berlioz on the record player. How do you think she looks?”
“She looks great,” I said.
“She does, doesn’t she. That was right of you to visit. Eight years with the councilman and never once did he visit.”
“What’s going on, Chuckie?” I asked.
“Not one fucking visit. He never cared, treated me like cat piss the whole time. Chet visited, but he’s like that. Brought flowers. She likes flowers.”
“What’s going on?”
“You surprised me today,” he said. “I thought you’d keep bending over for them, I was certain of it, though when I found out you visited Mommy I began to wonder. Why would he do something like that? Except maybe if he’s not going to stay bent over. But it was still a surprise. I saw you talking with Prescott.”
“A friendly chat,” I said.
“And you subpoenaed the girl.”
“Yes, I did.”
“What you did in court was bad enough,” he said. “They are very upset at you, furious. But you shouldn’t have subpoenaed the girl. It was a mistake. They have their plans. You are in far greater danger than you realize.”
“Is this another threat? Is that what this is all about?”
“You’re misunderstanding again, like you did before. All I wanted was to help Chet. I knew from the first that Jimmy would turn on him. I was certain you knew too and were going along with it. But then you surprised me. Listen, you can’t realize the depths of the councilman’s betrayal. It goes way beyond Chet, which is bad enough. It goes beyond anything imaginable.”
Suddenly it dawned on me that Chuckie Lamb was trying to help. “What happened to the missing money?” I asked.
“I have a story for you.”
“Like Jack and the beanstalk?”
“More like Faust,” he said. “But not over the phone.”
“Okay. Let’s meet. Anywhere.”
“I’m close to the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, do you know it?”
“Yes,” I said.
“Ten minutes.”
“Sure,” I said and then I thought for a moment and let a wave of paranoia float over me. “I can trust you, can’t I, Chuckie? This isn’t a setup, is it?”
“You’ll understand when we talk,” he said. “It will all be enough to make you sick. Ten minutes.”
When I hung up Beth was still staring at me. “I have to go,” I told her.
“Was that Chuckie Lamb?”
“I think so,” I said. “But he was mellower than usual, like Chuckie Lamb on Quaaludes.”
“What does he want?”
“He wants to tell me a story,” I said. “I have to go. Don’t wait up for me.”
I found my sneakers, put on a white shirt over my T-shirt, grabbed my raincoat out of the closet. I had already opened the door when I turned around and asked her, “Do you know where the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier is?”
“Arlington?” she said.
“No, here.”
“Is there one?”
“Dammit,” I said, realizing I had told Chuckie I’d be there without knowing where it was. “Who can I ask?” I said. “Is the tourist bureau open?”
“It’s after midnight,” she said. “How about the phone book?”
“What, under tombs?”
“The yellow pages have maps in the front,” she said and she was right.
I searched through a map of Center City historical sights and there it was, in Washington Square, off Locust between 6th and 7th, the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier of the American Revolution, a soldier so unknown I hadn’t even known he had a tomb. As soon as I found it on the map I headed for the door, late already, hoping Chuckie wouldn’t leave before I got there.
Through the heavy rain I ran to my car. I soaked the seat when I sat down. I drove east on Locust, past DiLullo’s and the Academy of Music, over Broad Street, straight through the rain until the road detoured at 7th Street, routing around Washington Square. I spun around the park and snapped to a stop at an illegal spot on 7th and rushed out.
The park was larger than a city block in size, ringed with a low brick wall. I ran through a gate and toward the center. The square was black with shadow, trees hanging low, blocking out whatever light the sky was dropping down. A few of the colonial-style street lamps let out a thin, lethargic light, the majority were dark. At the fountain in the center, its spout dead on this wet night, I spun around. From there I could see, on the west side of the park, twin rows of flagpoles, like a guard of honor, leading to a large wall of stone fronted by a statue.
I walked through a well of darkness between the flagpoles
and came upon the tomb, lighted by two thin beams of white halogen. On a raised stone platform, behind a chain held aloft by bronze balusters, was a sarcophagus and behind that, atop a granite pedestal, a bronze of Washington leaning on his sword. I looked around. Nothing. I read the inscription on the wall of stone behind Washington:
FREEDOM IS A LIGHT FOR WHICH MANY MEN HAVE DIED IN DARKNESS
. I looked around again. Nothing. I had missed him. “Dammit,” I said out loud as the rain spilled from my bare head down the collar of my coat, drenching my shirt. “Dammit to hell,” I said.
Then I heard something from behind that great wall of stone.
“Chuckie?” I said.
No answer.
But then came the shadow. From behind the wall of stone. It staggered through the low bushes, stumbling around the wall, toward me. I stepped back. It still came at me, stumbling again, reeling, barely maintaining its balance. And then it lurched into that thin halogen beam and the weak white light fell on its face.
It was Chuckie.
He came closer, it looked like he was wearing a beard, a disguise, and then he stumbled again and fell into my arms and slid through them and fell upon the raised chain, his shoulders slipping down until his head rested beside the foot of the sarcophagus.
I bent over him. My God, it wasn’t a beard.
He was making a sound, a soft gurgle of a sound, blood pouring onto the stone platform from his mouth, from his slit throat, blood mixing with the rain, pooling into a puddle, growing lighter, weaker, until it was washed clean. Another gurgle, soft, horrifying, and then no more gurgles. Just Chuckie Lamb and the blood falling from his throat being washed to clear by the rain and no sound but the drops falling onto the park, onto the great stone wall, onto
Washington’s sword, onto the sarcophagus, onto his lifeless body, onto an envelope peeking out from his jacket, onto his neck, onto his face, no sound but the cleansing voice of the rain.
I took the envelope and ran like hell.