Cold Night (Jack Paine Mysteries)

by Al Sarrantonio

  She took the can from him and he didn't see where she put it.

  He didn't need her help this time. There was no laughter between them, no wordplay; there was something frighteningly elemental and unavoidable that removed them from the realm of human debate and made them part of nature. For the first time since he was a young boy and had lain out on the grass under the clouds, imagining himself one with those clouds, moving east with them through the thin pure blue air out to sea, he forgot who he was. He was not Jack Paine but a process, a force like the clouds or wind. There was no thought or time attached to what he was—he was outside thought or time. He was both bathed in release and horribly frightened.

  Sometime during the night, it ended, and he became Jack Paine again.

  She lay on the bed, and he lay next to her, and there were two of them again instead of one.

  Paine stared at the ceiling. "How long did you wait for me outside the door?"

  She shrugged, distracted. The flush had receded from her face. She turned gently away from him on the bed, slipping one hand under her head and staring at the window, away from him. For a moment he thought she had fallen asleep.

  "I don't know if I'm in love with you or not," she said.

  If she had said it a different way, Paine might have laughed. But the way she spoke, as if her mind was as unsure as her body had been sure, made him say instead, "Does it matter?"

  She shrugged, or maybe it was a shudder.

  "I never loved Gerald," she said.

  "That's easy to believe."

  "I don't know if I've ever really loved anybody, except maybe Dolores." She spoke almost to herself.

  Paine let her have silence.

  "When we were little girls, Dolores and I played together when she wasn't reading. We had a cat then, and we dressed him up like he was a baby. Dolores was the father and I was the mother. I had to cook on a toy wooden stove I'd gotten one Christmas. I always had to make turkey, because that was Dolores's favorite meal. We always had it on Thanksgiving and then on Christmas, and Dolores said if we had it all the time then it would always be Christmas. I had a toy ironing board, and a little toy iron from F.A.O. Schwarz that really plugged into the wall and got a little warm on the bottom. I had to iron clothes for the cat, and I had to clean and make dinner. My mother never did those things because we had servants for all that, but in our game that was the way we did it.

  "As the father, Dolores would come home from her job, and I would lay out the turkey dinner on our play table, with a real little red checkered tablecloth on it, and with plastic vegetables and even plastic cranberry sauce. Dolores would get my father's Times from the morning and read it at the table. She even had one of my father's old pipes, and she pretended to smoke it after the meal was finished. We always had chocolate cake for dessert, because Dolores liked it. She had chocolate cake every birthday, with chocolate icing. I fought with her sometimes, because I wanted to be the father and try the pipe and read the paper, but she never let me."

  She turned her head on the pillow and lay staring at the ceiling, her face suffused with what looked like dreams. Paine watched the track of a single tear ride the corner of her eye down into the trimmed, unbrushed wave of her hair.

  "I think she got it all from books," Rebecca said, and then she was quiet for a time before she rolled to Paine like a weeping child.

  He held her, felt his hands around her and wanted to take whatever was gnawing through her and tear it out and kill it and then take the ripped pieces of her and fit them back together again. He had never felt like this before.

  "I think I'm in love with you," he said.

  "Don't say that," she sobbed gently, and he continued to hold her.

  At the end of the night, he awoke and looked at her. Sleep, or what they had done, or his words, perhaps, or her words, had loosened the spring that had been wound so tight within her, and had left her limp and free to dream. Her head lay on the side of the pillow, her mouth slightly open. The hollows around her closed eyes, the dark circles of makeup, made her look as if her eyes would be larger than they were. He studied the curve of her nose, the artistic sculpture of her cheek leading to the firmer flesh of her chin and down into the valley of her throat. He thought about how few times in a man's life he was able to study a woman without her knowledge or consent, as merely a work of art.

  He watched the coming light through the window play across the landscape of her face, until some relay switched within her and she stirred. She opened her eyes at him, still in her dream or just coming through its portal back into life, and for the tiniest of moments he felt on the verge of revelation. It was like the time Ginny had come into the room as he cocked the gun to his head, the frozen second of time that had forever colored her for him and opened her secret heart to him. It was like that, only it was different, and for the briefest measure of time he was on the edge of knowing what made him feel the way he did about her, and then it was lost to him. It was in his consciousness and then it was gone before he could grasp and know it.

  Then her eyes really saw him, and without moving her head she smiled, and then she stretched beneath the covers. "What time is it?" she asked.

  "About seven."

  Keeping her smile, she reached her hand to lay it on his arm. "I have to be at the house at nine. Lawyer business."

  He brought his own arm out of her light grip. "Did your father ever mention anyone named Lucas Druckman?"

  He reached over to the floor and picked up his jacket, taking the slip of paper he'd found in Paterna's office and handing it to her. "Did he ever mention someone named Izzy?"

  She shook her head.

  "Did your father have any business in California?"

  "Nothing that I know of."

  Paine reached back into the jacket pocket and retrieved the photo of the older couple with the horse. "Those are eucalyptus trees," he said, pointing to the stand of California conifers bordering the pasture in the photo. "And the phone number on that slip of paper is a Los Angeles number." He took out the picture of the head shot in sideburns. "And that's Lucas Druckman."

  She looked at him. "I don't understand."

  "All this has something to do with California. Does your sister Gloria have any dealings on the West Coast?"

  "I don't think so. Her husband might. He's a budding politician, you know." She gave a slight smile. "He wants to be President."

  Again she laid her hand on his arm, squeezing it. "If I want to see you again, do I wait outside your door?"

  Paine laughed. "If you want. If you can't find me, there's a fellow named Bob Petty who might know where I am." He gave her Petty's number.

  "I've got to go," she whispered.

  She slipped silently out of bed and went to the bathroom. When she came out, she was dressed.

  He lay in bed, looking at her. The angle of morning sun made a partial shadow of her face.

  "How did your mother die?" he asked quietly.

  Her face went deeper into shadow. "The death certificate my father bought said cardiac arrest. But she took an overdose of sleeping pills. She killed herself."

  The shadow receded; a cloud outside the window moved away from the sun. Occluded light leapt back into her face. "I have to go," she said.

  FOURTEEN

  Margie said, "Henry Kopiak is in your office."

  "Shit," said Paine. On his way down the hall, Jimmy Carnaseca called to him from his office, and Paine went in.

  "How you doing, Jack?" Jimmy smiled. He had the box of little wooden girders out, and he was fitting one of them precisely into the growing structure on his desk.

  "Any guesses?" Jimmy asked. "You should be able to figure it out by now."

  There was an Italian architect who designed things like this, all angles. It looked a little like a temple Paine had seen once in National Geographic. It looked a little like a lot of things.

  "It's an office building," Paine said.

  "Not even close," Jimmy answered, grinning.
He fit another tiny girder into its slot. "You know, Jack," he said, "you still look like shit. Worse, even."

  "Thanks."

  "I still say you should do like me. What you need is more sex."

  "Don't you ever work, Jimmy?"

  "All night, Jack." He laughed, picking another tiny bit of wood from its box, examining it carefully, applying a dab of glue to it before wedging it between two struts.

  Paine reached out to turn the model's box over and look at the picture, but Jimmy clamped his hand down.

  "No fair, Jack," he said.

  When Paine walked into his office, Kopiak was standing with his hands behind his back, looking out the window. He had opened the blinds, but had done it without soiling his fingers with the dust.

  Kopiak's briefcase stood upright next to the visitor's chair, and his raincoat was hung neatly on the hook on the back of the door.

  "What can I do for you, Mr. Kopiak?" Paine asked.

  Kopiak turned and frowned, then nodded. His face was smooth and full, the kind that would turn jowly without exercise. His hair was stylishly long and gray. His clothes weren't cheap but he looked like a suburban lawyer. He looked like the kind of man who didn't like dust, but didn't mind disturbing things.

  "You're certainly the Jack Paine that Mary Wagner described to me," Kopiak said. "At least you're who you say you are." A grim smile flirted with his face but lost out to the frown. He left the window and sat in the visitor's chair, and Paine sat behind his desk. Kopiak didn't reach for his briefcase immediately, which to Paine was a good sign.

  "I don't approve of your impersonating me, Mr. Paine," Kopiak said. The frown deepened to borderline scowl.

  "I was just doing my job, Mr. Kopiak."

  "There are other ways you could have gone about it."

  "Would you have let me in there to see her?"

  "No, I wouldn't have."

  "I hope you see my point, Mr. Kopiak."

  "I wonder if your employer, Mr. Barker, would see it that way."

  Paine shrugged.

  "You could have hurt Ms. Wagner's case by prompting her to reveal information she had withheld from the police."

  "Aren't lawyers supposed to keep people from incriminating themselves?"

  "That's not the point, Mr. Paine."

  "Did you get her out of jail?"

  "Certainly I did—"

  "Why don't you tell me why you came here then, Mr. Kopiak? If you wanted to slap me on the wrist about practicing law without a sheepskin, you would have called me on the phone or had me arrested. Why didn't you have me arrested?"

  Kopiak glared at him.

  Paine said, "You don't like me, do you, Kopiak? I certainly don't like you."

  Kopiak took a deep breath and shook his head. He pulled his briefcase onto his lap and snapped it open. It was neat and tidy and he lifted a slim envelope out of a trimmed leather pocket and handed it over to Paine.

  There was no writing on the envelope; it was uncreased and flat. The flap was tucked in and Paine pulled it open and lifted a blue rectangular check out.

  "The check is endorsed to you, personally, for five thousand dollars, Mr. Paine. Mr. Barker needn't know about it. If you would prefer, we can go through the agency. It makes no difference to me."

  "What do you want for all this money, Mr. Kopiak?"

  "I want the material from the folder Mary Wagner mentioned to you, the one that was in Les Paterna's desk. I found the torn pieces of the folder in Paterna's wastebasket, which means that you were there and found it empty. Someone was obviously there before you. I'd like you to find that material and return it to me."

  "Would you like to tell me what's in it?"

  "No, I would not."

  Paine slipped the check back into the envelope and tucked in the flap. The envelope was creased now, and he liked that. "You take this out to Margie Miles at the front desk, and she'll help you fill out one of our standard contracts. She'll also help you sign over the check to the Barker Agency. If you want to do that, I'll be glad to look for your material."

  Kopiak produced a business card from another leather pocket in his briefcase and handed it to Paine. "If you find anything, call me." He snapped his briefcase shut and got up. He walked to the door and took his raincoat off the hook and draped it over his arm.

  "Good-bye, Mr. Paine," he said, and left without looking back.

  Paine pulled the phone in front of him on his bare desk, pulled out the slip of paper that said "Izzy" on it and dialed the California telephone number.

  It rang for a long time. Then someone picked up the receiver and a woman's drowsy voice said, "What?" When Paine asked for Izzy she told him to wait. There was a long wait. Paine heard argument in the background. The phone sounded like it was picked up and then put down again. Finally, a man's voice said into it tentatively, "Hello?"

  "Izzy?" Paine asked.

  "Who's this?"

  "I'm calling for Lucas Druckman."

  There was a tiny intake of breath, and for a moment Paine thought he had hung up. Then the voice said slowly, as if it wanted to remember everything about his answer, "Who is this?"

  "A friend of Lucas Druckman."

  There was more argument between the two voices on the other end of the phone, then the voice came back.

  "Druckman had no friends."

  Paine looked at the number on the slip of paper, 33,000, and repeated it into the phone.

  There was a new intake of breath, a big one. The voice said, "Who gave you that figure?"

  Paine played the fear in the voice. "Druckman gave it to me."

  "When?"

  "Recently."

  "Bullshit."

  "Why is that bullshit?"

  Paine heard the female in the background yelling at Izzy to hang up. He kept telling her to shut up. "I'll take care of it!" he shouted, and she answered, "Shit you will." It sounded like an exchange they had often.

  Izzy's voice came back to Paine.

  "Who are you?"

  "A friend—"

  "I'll tell you," Izzy interrupted. His words trembled with suppressed fear. "I don't know who gave you that figure, or what you did to get it, but that was between Druckman and me."

  Paine heard the female yell something loud and Izzy's voice shouted back at her and the phone went dead.

  Paine called the number back and let it ring for five minutes. Nobody answered. He pictured the two of them, Izzy a short punk with a spreading bald head, the woman a frowzy blonde in her fifties with thick legs, the two of them packing suitcases, Izzy stopping every minute or so to say to her maybe it was just a joke, maybe it didn't mean anything, and the frowzy blonde yelling at him to remember what happened to what's-his-name, what happened when he didn't pay and thought he could get away with it, why didn't you pay Druckman, why didn't you do this and that, and then Izzy continuing to pack, the woman throwing things into suitcases now, imagining the knock at the door, imagining herself dead, a stupid old bleached blonde hooked up with an asshole named Izzy, her whole life reeling across the back of her eyes as she jammed black negligees into a suitcase and, down at the bottom, hidden, Dr. Scholl's footpads for her aching feet and a girdle she wore when they went out, which was almost never, anyway, but if Izzy knew she wore a girdle and Dr. Scholl's footpads he might dump her, even though he was an asshole, what would she do then, and Izzy pausing again, saying, "Maybe—"

  Paine dialed Bob Petty. Someone told him that Petty wasn't there. He was about to hang up when Petty got on the phone.

  "Glad you called, Jack."

  He sounded tired and mad.

  "Something wrong, Bobby?"

  "Some asshole over here decided I shouldn't talk with you. I can handle it. Dannon's been on my case, just like I told you."

  "You're the only guy I'd back off for, Bobby. Just ask." He could almost hear Petty's back stiffen. "Fuck you," he said. Then he added, "Hold on, Jack, let me take the call in an empty office."

  Paine heard emptiness, then Bob
by came back on. He sounded like he was in another country; the usual background of typewriters and voices was gone.

  Petty said, "Dannon's bringing the whole thing out again." Petty emphasized the word "whole."

  "I told you I'd chuck it," Paine said.

  "And I said fuck you. It's just that it was hard enough on Terry the first time around. She still thinks all the grief I got after backing you caused the miscarriage. And now to drag it all into the open again—"

  "She's pregnant?" Paine interrupted. He knew there were only a few things that would get Petty to go on like this.

  "Yeah," Bob answered. He laughed gruffly. "You know she always wanted three."

  She would have had them hung between the words.

  It would do no good to give in to Dannon. If he tried to do that, Bobby would scream and kick his butt until they both called Dannon and told him to fuck himself. Petty was marine stock, and Irish, and nothing could get him to change his mind. If he thought Paine was giving up on something because of him, it would be worse for everybody —for Paine, for Terry, for Bobby himself. He could almost hear Petty berating himself for letting any emotion show. "Why did you call, Jack?"

  "There's another creep, named Lucas Druckman. A loan shark, probably. He's from California, might be here now."

  "I have a friend named Ray at LAPD." There was silence, then Bobby said gingerly, "You know, if Dannon gets his way, it's going to open all the holes up for you again."

  "I know that."

  "All of them, Jack."

  "Yeah."

  "What I mean is . . ."

  "Will I fall apart? Try to kill myself?"

  "Well . . ." Two beats of silence. "Don't forget I'm here for you, if you need me."

  "Don't worry about me, Bobby."

  Another beat of silence. "Let me go punch out that bastard who said I wasn't here."

  "Do that, Bobby."

  Paine sat staring at the phone. There was a noise at the door and he looked up to see Margie. She wore her typical pained expression.

  "He wants you," she said.

  "My body or mind?"

  Margie smiled grimly and turned back to the reception area.