The Fall-Down Artist (18 page)

“Sensible,” Everette said. In contemplation, he ran a finger across his chin. “But in fairness to John, you've provided only half a case. Using an agency does appear to be inappropriate in this instance. But you and I know there are a number of very competent independents in the city.
Why not use one of them? Why must it be Dorsey?”

Cleardon broke in before Corso could answer. “Ray, please hold your thoughts. I would like to hear Dorsey plead his own case. After all, he hasn't had much of an opportunity to speak.”

Dorsey let the downbeat pass and returned Cleardon's slick smile. “I'm the one to see this thing through because I'm in it up to my neck. I'm an independent, my own employer and owner of my own business. You, Charles, work on a much vaster scale, but I think you can see me as a fellow businessman. I have to look after business, and right now my business is on the line.”

Cleardon's eyes roamed the table, apparently checking reactions. He nodded for Dorsey to continue.

“This thing can end three different ways for me,” Dorsey said. “You could dump me now, and I'll have some lean days ahead. With some luck and hard work, I may bounce back, but for a while nobody will want to hire a guy who couldn't keep his face off of TV. There'll be a lot of jokes, but I'll get by and things will die down like they have a tendency to do. Then I'll be back to where I was a few months ago, which wasn't so good.

“Or,” Dorsey went on, “you might keep me on the job and I screw up worse than I already have. More time on TV, picture in the paper, the whole deal. Maybe even a trumped-up harrassment suit. And that, Charles, would be the end of Dorsey. I'd be out. No work from any insurance company or law firm. In a very short time, I'd be a five-buck-an-hour rent-a-cop guarding a warehouse of empty beer kegs.”

“And the third outcome?” Everette grinned, approving the performance.

“I stay on the case and wrap it up.” Dorsey turned from Everette back to Cleardon. He was sure of the real seat of power and wanted to play to it. “I bring the whole thing down, whatever the whole thing turns out to be. Maybe even deliver enough for a few convictions. The priest would take a fall and so might Stockman. As for me, I'd
be set for good. I'd come out of this looking great. If Stockman goes down, I'll be a hero. He's burned a lot of people, both adjusters and lawyers. Those guys would all throw work my way, wanting to be my friend.”

“I mentioned Jack before,” Everette said. “I'm not sure I like his being entangled in this.”

“Me neither,” Dorsey said. “He scares the living hell out of me. He's the best: clever and slippery. And his reputation goes with him into the courtroom. He's a leg up on the defense before the trial begins. But evidence on him might tie his ankle to the plaintiff's table.”

Everette lowered his head to ponder, Corso fiddled with his pipe, and Munt looked defeated. Cleardon smiled, and Meara raised his pencil to take the floor.

“Let's be clear on this.” Meara squared his shoulders and adjusted his suit jacket, still buttoned. “If there is a criminal fraud case coming out of this investigation, Dorsey, either I or an assistant DA from another county will be seeking indictments, using evidence you've uncovered. So I speak for myself
and
my counter-parts, because the rules of evidence don't change from county to county. What you have so far isn't going to cut it. If this is all you can come up with, don't knock on my door. If these people have something going, there'll be damned little about it written down on paper. No agreements signed in blood. You say you're good. So tell me what I need.”

“Testimony.” Dorsey spoke softly and turned to each of them to be sure it registered. “That's what Bill has in mind. Somebody to tell the whole sad tale to a grand jury, maybe even at trial. Somebody who can say he was part of it and saw it happen. Who can say so-and-so thought it all up. And if there is some paper somewhere, bank slips or anything that shows money changing hands, this informant can lead us to it. Bill, am I right?”

“Essentially, that's the general idea.” Meara stayed in his interrogator's demeanor. “This is not going to be an easy one. Again, if you bring me crap, I don't know your name.”

Everette allowed a moment for Meara's words to have their full effect. “Well, let's go around the table on this. As far as Dorsey's staying on the job goes, I have only minor reservations: He is known to the—uh, opposition and the TV fellow, Hickcock.” He turned to Meara. “Bill, you're here on observer states, so I'll ask you to pass on the voting. But let's hear from the rest.”

It began with Corso, but Dorsey paid only faint attention. Only one man will make this decision, he thought; the rest is blue smoke and mirrors. The man who holds the purse strings and traveled all this way to see me in the flesh: let's get to him.

Munt began to speak his piece but Cleardon cut him off. “Dorsey stays,” he said.

Silently, Dorsey thanked the hand on the purse strings.

Cleardon spoke firmly, leaving no room for debate. He slid his thumb and forefinger up and down his coat lapel, a gambler calling the hand. “Excuse me,” Cleardon said, “all of you. George asked for an informal meeting, with our rank insignia left in the cloakroom, and up until now I've agreed wholeheartedly. But we've just entered the realm of decision-making and responsibility-taking. I'm senior corporate officer; only the CEO carries a greater burden of accountability. The reason I'm here is because of the gravity of this situation, especially in the area of public relations. Because of these concerns and the importance of this decision, I've decided to make it myself. Dorsey stays. From the proper perspective, you should all feel very liberated. In the event Dorsey lets us down, I'm the only one on the hook for it.”

“It's a real possibility,” Munt said. “Letting us down, I mean.”

Cleardon folded his hands on the table and faced Munt. “John, you've stated your concerns and reservations, and as of now I am rejecting them. Unless some major crisis develops, it is my decision to stick with Dorsey to the end of the line. That's final.”

Dorsey gripped the table's edge, steadying himself
against the urge to yell in triumph. It's yours, he told himself, right to the end of the line! Everette gave him a smile and a nod. Corso fumbled with his pipe, and it fell to the tabletop with a clatter. He took Cleardon's hint, Dorsey thought; he's liberated. His own neck was stretched and might still be after Cleardon's dressing-down of Munt. Ah, fuck 'em both, you got the case. Bernie, who had been sweating throughout the meeting, waved to Dorsey and quickly excused himself.

“I'm glad this is decided.” Meara rested his pencil at last. “And now that it is, I need to point a few things out to all of you. We really have to avoid any false expectations in this matter.”

“You're correct, Bill,” Everette said. “Please speak your mind.”

“This is fraud we're talking about, and testimony must be the cornerstone of any potential case. But we have other elements of the crime to prove as well. These have to be willful, deliberate acts. The priest and his friends have to have a clear plan. Nothing written down, but a joint understanding and intent among the actors. And the money has to add up. If this is only a few bucks skimmed to feed the unemployed, my office won't touch it.

“One last thing,” Meara added. “Dorsey could be wrong. I'm warning you, my office will not participate in an attempt to manufacture evidence to fit the theory.”

“Understood.” Cleardon nodded his commitment to Meara but kept his eyes on Dorsey. “Dorsey, you have your case. Coordinate things with Ray. He'll give you any help you need.”

Everette took up the cue. “Well, then, we have wrapped up our business for this afternoon. I thank each of you for your time.”

Cruising across
the bridge back to South Side, Dorsey brooded over Meara's words. Testimony was needed, and he had to find the person who was willing, or could be made willing, to provide it.

Dorsey considered the candidates. Radovic was out. What devotion, he's ready to sprout angel's wings streaked with slag dust. And Damjani was too incomplete a person to experience guilt or remorse. Movement Together finds its strength as a holy crusade, not as a labor union. But there must be someone, just one. There always is. One whose motives are not completely golden. One who can be leaned on.

It struck Dorsey as he unlocked his front door. Without taking a moment to remove his jacket, he dropped into the desk chair, wheeled himself to the file cabinet, and thumbed his way through the middle drawer. When he found the folder he was after, he wheeled back to the desk, spread the file's contents across the blotter, and dialed the number in the top left corner of Dr. Tang's stationery. Recognizing the receptionist's voice, he asked if she remembered him. She laughed at the question.

“Who could forget your visit?” She spoke in a hushed voice. “Took the doctor three days before he was himself again. But it broke the monotony around here. You want another appointment?”

Dorsey laughed too, telling her he never tried twice to piss off a guy who was handy with a scalpel. “That friend of yours, Claudia. I stopped by her place when I was up there. You were right, she takes long vacations.”

“She's home now.” The receptionist gave Dorsey a disgusted grunt. “Bitch makes me sick. Rest of us tryin' to chase down some decent work, and she gets a tan.”

“Unemployed?”

“Free as a bird and getting three squares from her mother.”

“Give me her number,” Dorsey said. “In case I need to get hold of her.”

After the call was finished, Dorsey ran through the answering machine tape. There had been only one caller: Sam Hickcock. He apologized again for the doorstep coverage and then suggested that Dorsey watch Channel Three at ten-thirty. If you want, Hickcock said, you can appear on next week's show.

“Fuck you and your show,” Dorsey muttered.

Bernie took a Michelob from the office refrigerator, lingered a moment to consider the photos of Dorsey in his various basketball uniforms, then crossed the room and fell backward onto the chaise. With his legs stretched across the desktop and still wearing his now-crumpled suit jacket, Dorsey watched Bernie and awaited his critique of the meeting.

“Good job, but face it, you didn't do it alone.” Bernie stared out the window at Wharton Street, now dark with the early November evening. “I'm happy for you and, yes, you did handle that hard-ass Meara pretty well. But the deck was stacked. Corso never puts himself out for anyone, friend or relative. Yet the guy goes on the chopping block for you. The rich guy, Cleardon, he probably got a kick out of slumming with you and figured he might like to come back for more sometime. But Corso surprised the hell out of me.”

Dorsey waved off Bernie's concerns and swung his feet
to the floor. “In some ways you're right, Corso shook the shit out of me too. I liked what he said about me, but that wasn't him at the table. Could be he was running scared and figured his only chance was to tough it out.”

“Hell, I don't know.” Bernie massaged the bridge of his nose, his eyes shut tight. “The guy has always been slippery. For my money he's a thief, steals his salary. Shook his hand at a meeting once and a friend suggested I count my fingers afterward. Always has that slow thoughtful answer to every question, like there's really something going on inside his head.”

Dorsey sipped his beer and worked through his unopened mail. “Met Corso at a meeting, huh? When was this?”

“A year, maybe eighteen months ago,” Bernie said. “We were set for trial on a personal injury case. Corso was to arrange for some expert testimony from this vocational specialist, but he fucked up.” Bernie paused momentarily. “Or so I thought.”

Dorsey ripped the seam of an envelope with his thumbnail. “How could he fuck up a voc expert?”

“Plaintiff was a pharmacist who ripped up his right hand when he fell in a bar and put the hand through a glass tabletop. It was one of those fern bars downtown; the tables were those wrought-iron and plate-glass deals. The pharmacist was fresh from work, so he was still sober. And four witnesses were willing to testify that a waitress had just spilled a tray of drinks near the table not ten minutes before. So the liability was undeniable.”