Past Due (38 page)

I
T WAS JUST
after eleven when I finally got to the office after Lonnie Chambers’s funeral, a faint dusting of Lonnie still on my shoulders. It had been an almost touching ceremony at the burned-out building that had once been Lonnie’s shop, what with the howl of the motorcycles, the roar of the boom boxes, the belch of the beer cans in tribute before one of the motorheads had taken the urn with Lonnie’s remains, opened the top, tossed it high into the air so that the metal dropped into the burned-out hulk of his shop and his ashes fell upon the mourners and the neighborhood where he had worked and died. And then had come the guitar. Soft chords, a simple progression, A to D to E to D back again to A, over and over again, played as slowly as a dirge, before a voice started and others joined, singing slowly and softly as if the most solemn hymn.

I had stood off to the side for the whole event, conspicuous in my suit, and after the strains of “Wild Thing” disappeared, replaced
by something loud and Metallica played from a boom box, I was about to turn and leave when I saw Chelsea come my way. She was crying and smiling at the same time.

“He loved that song,” she said.

“How are you doing?”

“Better. Thank you. I still miss him, I think I’m going to miss him for the rest of my life. There’s a hole in my heart.”

“Is someone helping you deal with what happened?”

“I’ve been on the phone.”

“I meant someone trained in grief counseling.”

“Cooper’s very advanced.”

“He’s a convicted felon, Chelsea.”

“Which makes him a perfect adviser for me, right?”

I must have showed my chagrin at the loose remark because Chelsea, also a convicted felon, put a hand to my cheek.

“I’m going out there for a while,” she said. “I’m leaving this afternoon. He’s spent the last twenty years working through his past, the good and the bad, the mistakes, the waste. You know, he was planning to run away, they both were, he and Tommy. But Cooper in the end decided not to. He decided to face up to what he had done and suffer the consequences with the rest of us. And through it all he’s been a rock. I think he can help me finally find some peace.”

“Did he help Lonnie?”

“For a time, but in the end Lonnie didn’t want to be helped. Did you think about what I said at the fire?”

“The dead rising?”

“Yes. Cooper thinks that’s what’s going on.”

“So do I. If it’s true, it’s being taken care of while we speak.”

“By who?”

“Remember a little FBI guy named Telushkin?”

She wrinkled her nose with disgust and then turned toward the burned-out building. “You know when I was with Lonnie, I was never really with him. He wasn’t the key to my past, and I couldn’t see him as part of my future, and so I let the present slip away from us. When I think back, I think I failed him. I think I failed everyone. Myself too.”

I thought of telling her it was all right, I thought of giving some false comfort, but the thing about Chelsea that I admired most of all was that she didn’t want false comfort, she wasn’t looking for an easy way out of her sadness. So I gave her a hug instead.

“Good luck,” I said. “I hope your friend helps.”

“You know what Cooper says? He says if you can’t accept your past, understand it, even love it, if you can’t do that, then you become its slave. You spend your life either running from it or toward it, but either way you are running.”

Was there an answer in that? If there was I couldn’t yet see it, all I could see was the sad woman beside me and the desolation behind me and in front of me a pack of frightened rabbits running for their lives.

Beth was supposed to have joined me at the funeral, but I didn’t blame her for missing it. She had never met Lonnie and had apparently traded the funeral for another hour of sleep, but I was anxious to see her now. I had much to tell her, we had much to figure out together. Things were absolutely coming to a head. I was waiting still for word from Telushkin, but I wasn’t holding my breath. The prints would confirm my suspicions and the FBI would pick up Dean and with him in jail I could start to tie that bastard to Joey Parma’s murder. I was counting on Beth and Phil Skink, what I considered my brain trust, to help me figure out how.

“She’s not in yet,” said Ellie, my secretary.

“Was she supposed to be in court today?”

“It’s not on the schedule.”

“Maybe something popped up. Why don’t you call her cell and if that’s not answering, call her home, see if she’s sick.”

“Will do, Mr. Carl. There’s someone waiting for you in your office.”

“Waiting for me? Who?”

“He didn’t give his name.”

“And you let him into my office?”

“You don’t pay me enough to have tried to stop him.”

I eyed my office door nervously. “What is he wearing, a suit?”

“A sport coat, a green sport coat. Bright, very bright. The jacket I mean.”

“Ah, yes,” I said. “I see. And I don’t blame you.”

I snatched my messages and mail from the plastic holders on Ellie’s desk and headed into my office.

Leo, Dante’s boy, was sitting behind my desk, his eyes scanning the walls, his thick fingers drumming on my desktop, leaving, I had no doubt, impressions in the wood.

“This place is a dump,” he said.

“Maybe, but I call it home. You going to buy patches for that jacket?”

“I got three others just like it. The saleslady, she said the color matched my eyes.”

“And now you want me to sue?”

“The boss, he wanted to know if you delivered his message.”

“Tell him yes.”

“He’ll be pleased.” He took an envelope out of his jacket pocket and handed it to me. “He asked me to deliver this personally. It is a certain number that a certain party was calling about a certain scam of his.”

“How’d you guys get it?”

“We twisted a nipple, if you know what I mean.”

“Teddy?”

“There you go.”

“It must have hurt.”

“You have any idea of where he is now?”

“Who, Teddy?”

“No, the other guy, the guy what you gave our message to.”

“No, no idea.”

“You sure?”

“Yes, I’m sure.”

“Do yourself a favor, Victor. If you find out where he is, you let us know. We want to talk to him ourselves.” He stood up, straightened his jacket, looked around. “You ought to spruce this place up a bit, Victor. A little color would do wonders.”

“And I bet you have one in mind.”

After Leo left, I ripped open the envelope. A single yellow sheet
was inside and on the single yellow sheet was a single phone number, a number that looked vaguely familiar. The person on the other side of this line was the one Joey Parma had been looking to for money, enough money to pay off his debt to Teddy Big Tits and keep his girlfriend, the impossible Bev Rodgers, satisfied.

I picked up the phone, dialed it, and when I heard the greeting hung it up again. That fool, that stupid fool. This was the problem with taking up Joey Parma’s cause. Every step you followed in his sad little life became ever more pathetic.

I closed my eyes and rubbed my face and tried to snap myself back into focus. There was work to be done, work I had been neglecting, a motion for a reduction in sentence to be filed for Rashard Porter, a response to the Bar Association’s frivolous action against me, time sheets to fill out and bills to prepare, criminal opinions to review, cases that I had long been ignoring to stop ignoring. But I didn’t do any of that. I went through my messages, tossed out anything not related to Joey Parma or Eddie Dean or Tommy Greeley—if it was important enough they’d call back—and ended up with two pink message slips in my hand.

“This is Victor Carl,” I said into the phone. “Tell me the news.”

“Where is he?”

“I told you. Did you take the book to the lab? Did they ID the prints?”

“Yes, yes. We did all that. Where is he?”

“Oh hell, Telushkin, did you lose him again?”

“Two hours ago a joint task force of police and FBI entered the town house rented by the Mr. Dean you mentioned to me. It was deserted, nobody home, no sign of habitation. Cleaned out.”

“Of course it is,” I said.

“Where is he?”

“I don’t know. What took you so long? He was there when I handed you the book. I came right from his place.”

“These things take time. They can’t be rushed. All procedures must be followed, evidence gathered, warrants issued. We moved as fast as we could.”

“Apparently not fast enough.”

“They want you to come down to the federal building and give a full statement.”

“I can’t right now.”

“I won’t let him escape me this time. I won’t.”

“You already have, haven’t you?”

Once again the fugitive had eluded his grasp. That was Telushkin’s fate, to be skewered by Tommy Greeley. Now it was up to me, though I had suspected it would be up to me from the first, and I was clueless as to what to do. I knew who had set up Tommy Greeley—Jackson Straczynski, using his hood of a brother to beat up and rob the man who was screwing with his screwy wife—but I didn’t know what to do with that knowledge. Whatever crime had been committed it was twenty years old and no murder had occurred and so the statute of limitations had long expired. Joey had been in the clear all along, that stupid son of a bitch, and Derek Manley now had nothing to fear, and neither did the justice. The only one who could still be prosecuted was the running man, Eddie Dean, Tommy Greeley, one and the same, whose indictment had stopped the limitations period from expiring, but he was back on the lam and I had no idea where to find him.

Maybe Kimberly could help. A boat, she had been off that very morning, she had said, to see a man about a boat. What did that mean? He hadn’t left yet, of that I was pretty sure. He still had business here, he wouldn’t leave without the suitcase or the stuff I had brought back from Brockton, or the money he thought was still hanging around. So I had some time, but whatever I did, I would have to do it quickly or he would be gone again, and with him would have fled my last best chance for learning what happened to Joey Parma. That’s why I needed Beth and Skink, together, to talk through the options, to keep me from doing something stupid. On my own I am prone to stupidity, but Beth and Skink keep me sharp, keep me focused.

I looked at the second message, shook my head, dialed the phone.

“We need to talk,” said Slocum.

“That’s never a good sign,” I said. “Does this mean you’re breaking up with me?”

“We need to get together right away.”

“I’m a bit busy now.”

“What did you say to him last night?”

“To who? Derek?”

“The feds have been chewing my ass all morning. They want to know what you said to him. They want to know why after your visit last night he went ape shit. They want to know why he disappeared and where he went.”

“Derek is missing?”

“Gone.”

“What about the baby-sitters?”

“The bastard slipped out the window.”

“There were bars.”

“He had a screwdriver.”

“Nice security.”

“They were secured on the inside. He was the one that wanted protection. But for some reason, after your visit, he wanted out. They need to talk to you immediately at the federal building.”

“I seem to be pretty popular down there right now. Tell them to wait.”

“What’s going on?”

“When I find out you’ll be the first to know.”

“By definition that’s a lie.”

“So it is.”

“Carl, this isn’t funny.”

“I’ll be in touch.”

“Carl.”

I hung up lightly, not angrily, so lightly Slocum was probably still calling out my name before he realized I wasn’t there anymore. So Manley had slipped out the window. Maybe he knotted his sheets together, or maybe he leaped out onto a leafy bush, now a leafy dead bush. That must have been a sight, like a whale falling from an apple tree. What would Newton have made of that? I suppose Manley had some business to take care of and, after delivering his message to that 609 number, I had a pretty good idea of what it was. That was why Leo had come, not to give the envelope, but to enlist my aid in finding Derek. The feds weren’t the only ones rushing
around like Keystone Kops looking for him. Run, Derek, run, I thought, because they are all coming after you. But Manley, I figured, could take care of himself; I had other things to deal with.

I saw a light flash on my phone, Slocum phoning back to shout in my ear, I presumed. I didn’t want to talk to him right now, I didn’t want to be hauled down to the federal building and locked in a room with a hungry pack of U.S. marshals who had been embarrassed by a fleeing witness, with the FBI in the hallway waiting for their own crack at me. I didn’t have time for that right now.

“I’m not in,” I called out to my secretary.

She stepped into my office and closed the door.

“I can’t find Ms. Derringer,” she said. “Her cell phone doesn’t answer and neither does her home phone. I left messages on both.”

“Okay,” I said. “Maybe she took a spa day.”

“She never takes a spa day, Mr. Carl. And there’s a call for you.”

“I don’t want to talk to Slocum.”

“It’s not Mr. Slocum. It’s someone else. He said you’d want to talk to him. He had an accent.”

“What kind of accent?”

“I don’t know. Michael Caine? Like that.”

I waited for Ellie to leave and close the door behind her before I picked up the phone.

“ ’Ello, Victor,” came Colfax’s slow angry voice.

“What do you want?”

“I thought we’d ’ave ourselves a little chat.”

“I don’t want to chat with you.”

“Not even if we talk about your pal Willie Shake? You’re a grand one for talking about Willie Shake.”

“What do you want?”

“Oh, don’t be like that. It was quite a performance you put on last night. You would have made a fine little public school boy, staying up all night with the other lads, discussing Shakespeare in your common room as you buggered one another to the dawn. A regular Oscar Wilde.”