Past Due (18 page)

T
HE NINE BLOCKS
between my shabby office and the District Attorney’s shabby offices were familiar ones. I had made that walk hundreds of times, knew every storefront deli between here and there, so the suit hadn’t been sent to make sure I didn’t get lost. And he hadn’t been sent to make sure I showed, a polite phone call would have done as much. I’m a polite guy, you’re polite with me, I’m polite with you, everything can be oh so polite. And that was the point, I understood perfectly, of the suit.

The DA’s offices were in an old YMCA, and I could still smell the sweat oozing out of the finely carved wood in the lobby. The suit used his magnetic card to open the glass door, signed me in, slapped a visitor sticker on my lapel, took me into the elevator, led me down the hallway of the seventh floor. He walked past the secretary, sitting at her station, and opened the door for me. I stopped at the secretary’s desk.

“Hello, Debbie,” I said.

“Hello, Mr. Carl.”

“Have you done something different with your hair?”

“Yes, as a matter of fact.”

“It is very becoming,” I said.

“Thank you for noticing. That is so nice.”

“See,” I said to the suit still standing at the door. “I can be polite. I really can.”

Funny, he didn’t seem to care.

“Is that Carl I hear out there, Berenson?” came a weary voice from the other side of the door.

“Yes, sir,” said the suit.

“Then will you politely ask that bastard to step inside and close the door behind him.”

K. Lawrence Slocum, chief of the DA’s homicide unit, was sitting at his desk, shirtsleeves rolled up to his forearms, his glasses off, his fingers rubbing at his eyes so insistently it was like he was rubbing at an instant play lottery card in search of a jackpot. No luck there, for when he stopped his rubbing, put his thick glasses back on, peered through the lenses and across his desktop, he was peering at me. K. Lawrence Slocum had broad shoulders, thick forearms, and a grizzled jaw. He was a sweetheart, really, so long as you didn’t cross him. But just now, he stared at me like I was something odor-iferous he had just scraped off his shoe.

“Do you know why I asked you here this evening, Carl?” said Slocum.

It wasn’t so hard to figure out, actually, what with the timing of the summons. And it wasn’t so hard to figure out, what with Detective McDeiss standing in the corner of the office, leaning against a bookcase, his arms crossed, trying mightily to suppress a grin. Still, I saw no reason to make it easy on him.

“Dinner and a show?” I said.

Slocum sighed. “Oh man,” he said, and then rubbed his hand across his mouth.

“Is it cold out there?” said McDeiss from the corner.

“Where?”

“Out there, where you’re standing, in the middle of the lake, with the wind howling and you precariously perched on that razor-thin sheet of ice. Is it cold? Because if it isn’t cold yet, it is going to be.”

“I just asked a few questions.”

“He is a Supreme Court justice,” said Slocum, his voice slow and soft and yet stiff as steel. “He is no friend of criminals, which means he is our friend indeed, and he has a power that extends beyond his docket. So when he calls the DA and drops a load on her, she needs to know it is being take care of. Which means she drops
the load on me. And now I am covered with it and frankly, Carl, it stinks.”

“Lysol,” I said. “It works wonders.”

“He is a Supreme Court justice.”

“I made an appointment. He agreed to see me. I didn’t stalk him, though, to be honest, I am not above stalking.”

“Whatever the basis of your relationship with the justice, it is now at an end. You are not to bother him again—or his wife. I asked you here this evening to make sure you understand what I have just said. Do you understand?”

“Oh, I’m sorry, Comrade Prosecutor. I thought this was America.”

“Do you hear that, Carl?” said McDeiss.

“What?”

“The ice beneath your feet starting to crack.”

“Do you know an attorney named John Sebastian,” said Slocum.

“The lead singer for the Lovin’ Spoonful?”

“The John Sebastian who is representing Derek Manley in a collection case in which you are representing a creditor named Jacopo Financing.”

“Oh, that John Sebastian,” I said, not liking the tack the conversation had suddenly taken.

“He filed a complaint against you with the Bar Association.”

“He’s a little oversensitive,” I said.

“Claimed you asked a series of improper questions for an improper motive. He included as an exhibit the deposition you took of his client. It made for some quite interesting reading, especially the part at the end about the night twenty years ago on the waterfront. Mr. Sebastian didn’t know where that information came from, but then again he wasn’t privy to your conversation with Detective McDeiss at the scene of Joseph Parma’s death. You know, Carl, don’t you, that it is improper to use privileged information from one client for the benefit of another client.”

“I can defend my conduct.”

“It looks like you may just get that chance,” said Slocum.

“Crack crack,” said McDeiss.

“In addition to your violation of the precepts of the Bar Association,
it appears you have been interfering with a homicide investigation. Obstruction of justice is a felony. It is hard to practice law from a jail cell.”

“Oh please. What grounds are you inventing for that?”

“First, you’re holding back,” said McDeiss, “which pisses me off. Next, Derek Manley has disappeared. Since your improper deposition, he has vanished. Vamoosed. We have received phone logs from Parma’s apartment which bring Manley into play. We wanted to ask him some questions, but you, apparently, scared him off.”

“That’s not obstruction of justice.”

“It feels like an obstruction to me.”

“Are you talking about your investigation or your bowel. Look, I’m representing Joey Parma’s mother in a wrongful death case. As part of that representation, I am trying to find out who killed her son and it looks like you boys need all the help you can get. It’s more than two weeks after the murder and what do you have? I’ll tell you.
Bupkes.
You know what
bupkes
is?”

“Isn’t that the cake with cinnamon and raisins?” said Slocum.

“That’s bobka,” said McDeiss. “Very tasty.”

“
Bupkes
is goat shit,” I said.

“You guys eat that too?” said Slocum.

“We’re making progress,” said McDeiss. “We would be making more progress without your interference.”

“My interference gave you the name Tommy Greeley. My interference gave you Teddy Big Tits.”

“He admits he was owed,” said McDeiss, “but he denies killing Joey.”

“Well, that is a surprise. He denied a murder. You press him hard on that? And what about Bradley Babbage?”

McDeiss looked at Slocum, Slocum looked at McDeiss. “Who is Bradley Babbage?” said McDeiss.

“Babbage was the informant who finally took down Tommy Greeley’s drug ring. Babbage was the guy who got away with no jail time and a bundle of money. And Babbage was the guy who died of mysterious causes in his swimming pool out in Gladwyne a week or so before Joey Parma had his throat sliced. Are we seeing a pattern here, gentlemen?”

Slocum looked again at McDeiss, McDeiss shrugged. It was nice to put them back on their heels for a moment, but it didn’t last.

“You talk to Dante yet?” said Slocum

“What?”

“Manley, in the deposition, mentioned Earl Dante,” said Slocum. “I was just wondering if he got in touch with you yet.”

“Dante?”

“He will. It is why Manley mentioned Dante in the deposition, to let you know he was being protected. You ignored his gentle warning. Dante now has to let you know that he knows you ignored it. Guys like Dante, they don’t like to be ignored. It makes them look weak. He’ll get in touch and we might be able to help you when he does.”

“Thanks, but I can take care of myself.”

“We are this close to taking Dante to a grand jury. This close. And he knows it. Things are starting to get dangerous. Dante is going to make everybody pick sides. You’re either with him or with us. Being with us means you tell us when he gets in touch and anything he says to you. Anything, you understand? Being with us also means you do us small favors when we ask. Like agreeing to keep the hell away from Justice Straczynski and his wife from here on in.”

“And if I don’t?”

Slocum’s voice had been soft and controlled, but now it stretched and filled with exasperation until it rose to shake the office.

“Oh just please shut up,” he shouted. “Just shut the hell up.”

He took off his glasses, began again rubbing his eyes, the muscles in his jaw throbbed. There was a long silence and then his voice, when it came, was as slow and soft as before.

“You cannot go tromping off and badgering a Supreme Court justice. You just can’t, do you understand? He has more muscle than you can imagine. He’ll squash you like the bug you’re pretending to be. I’m trying to help you here, as a friend, and you’re acting like a damn lawyer. Just promise me you’ll stay away from him. Just promise me. Please.”

“Okay.”

Slocum took his hand from his eyes, stared at me without his
glasses, his bare eyes seeming small and beady when not behind his thick lenses. “Is that all it took, just for me to yell?”

“Or maybe it was the ‘please,’ ” I said.

“So you’ll keep away from him, really?”

“Yes, really.”

“And his wife.”

“Yes, yes, yes, I’ll stay away from him and his wife.”

“I’ll tell the DA. She’ll be pleased.”

“I’m so glad. Are we through? I have dinner plans.”

“With that girl Swanson you been eating with lately?” said Slocum. “Or is tonight’s date with Stouffer’s.”

“Tonight I’m guest of honor at a Banquet.”

“Ah, the single life,” said Slocum. “I remember it well.” He put his glasses back on, leaned back in his chair, gave a nod to McDeiss.

“So, you looking for a date these days, Carl?” said McDeiss. “You in the market?”

“No.”

“Searching for someone to share those long walks in the rain.”

“Really, no.”

“Because I know a someone who’s available.”

“I’m sure your wife’s friends are very nice, Detective, but trust me when I say that I am not interested.”

“Oh I think you will be, Carl. Listen close. Seven ninety-nine Wolf Street. Apartment Three B. The name is Beverly Rodgers. Got that? Just your type, a real piece of work.”

“I’m a little busy.”

“Oh, not too busy for Bev, I’ll bet. Not for Bev. Everyone calls her Bev. And she’s a honey, yes she is. You’re lucky though to catch her now, see, because she’s back on the market. It turns out her last boyfriend had his throat slashed down on the riverfront. Funny how that is. And she’s not saying anything to the police, nothing, for some reason. But you ask me, Carl, odds are she knows something about it.”

I
WAS THINKING
it through, what Slocum and McDeiss had just given to me, the lead I had been looking for, the name and address of Joey’s girlfriend, when I reached Spruce Street and turned toward my building. Spruce is pretty and tree-lined, a street of quaint old town houses either refurbished spectacularly for the urban rich or chopped up into apartments for the urban not-so-rich. I was very much a not-so.

In the vestibule of my building, I leaned forward, opened the lock on my mailbox, reached in for its delightful little surprises, the magazines, the catalogs, the bills, the notices of unpaid invoices, the bills. As I grabbed the bundle and pulled it from the box, something heavy landed with a thud on my shoulder, blossoming into a flower of pain and driving me to my knees.

Something grabbed the back of my neck and slammed the top of my head into the metal wall of mailboxes and I felt less pain than I ought to have felt and the light dimmed almost to black, but only almost.

Something hit me hard in the stomach and the air vanished from my lungs. Whatever siren had begun to sound was silenced with the vanished air.

With all the fighting instincts of a pill bug, I fell onto my side and curled into ball and felt the pain swarm through my body.

A foot stepped onto my face and ground it into the hard tile floor before lifting and slamming onto my hip. Before I could raise my head to get a glimpse behind me, a hand pressed itself onto the side of my face, pushing so hard upon my nose I couldn’t move my head either way. The breadth of my vision now encompassed only the line where the floor met the wall and two splayed fingers spreading across my face.

“You are trespassing,” came a near indecipherable hiss in my ear. “Trespassing on property where you don’t belong.”

I tried to say something but the hand pressed harder on my face and my nose bent further sideways and a different voice said, “Don’t speak until you are asked a question.”

My eye closest to the floor began to burn. One of the fingers had a ring on it, I could see that, golden and thick.

“Who are you working for?” said the first voice, the whisper so soft I could barely make it out.

I tried to say something but the hand on my face gurgled the sound.

“Answer the question,” said the second voice.

“I can’t.”

“Oh yes, you can,” hissed the first voice. “Most assuredly. You’ve stepped into our territory now. The past is off limits to you. It belongs to us, you are not welcome here. Our possession of it is open, hostile, exclusive, continuous, adverse, do you understand? The signs are up, the fence is electrified, the dogs are loose and they are hungry. One more step inside and you won’t survive.”

“Someone’s coming,” said the second voice.

“Why do you care about what happened twenty years ago?”

The hand pressed down harder, my eye burned fiercer. “Answer the question,” barked the second voice.

“Who are you working for?”

“We have to get out of here. Someone is coming.”

“Who?”

“Now.”

“Tell him we will find him,” came the first voice, the speaker so close now I felt his breath on my ear. “And if you persist we will
deal with you like we deal with all trespassers. This is your requisite warning. There won’t be another.”

The hand pressed harder on my face, the foot lifted from my hip and stomped hard onto the side of my stomach.

I contracted my body into an even tighter curl and stifled my groans and felt my stomach heave as footsteps poured out of the vestibule and I was left alone with the pain and the nausea and the spill of my mail all about me.