And then the red-haired guy gets up and pushes his chair back angrily. Gettin’ all up in the other guy’s face. Like I said, not too smart, and saying, “Fuck you…you’ll get the money when we got it.”
The other guy just watches him, without saying a word as the red-haired guy storms outta there. One thing I know being a cop as long as I have, it’s better when the wiseguys say something. It’s when they’re quiet that you better run for cover.
Now Clive is pulling on me again. We’re passing the streets of Brooklyn again, going over the bridge into Manhattan. We’re in a run down kind of building, in the Wall Street area, but a little off the beaten path. I pass a sign on the door: CALLAHAN & JANUARY CAPITAL CORP. Fancy title for a shitty office. No receptionist, just a seedy lobby, holes in the carpet and a small room with a couple of computers. Then I see Clive, or Clive how he must’ve looked fifteen years or so ago. And the red-haired guy is there. Trying to look cocky, but I can tell he’s scared. Clive looks scared, too. He’s talking real quiet to the other guy.
“So, Red, what did he say about an extension on the loan?”
“He didn’t exactly agree to it, but don’t worry. I told him we’d give him the money when we had it.”
Clive doesn’t look too convinced. “And he was okay with that?”
“What could he say? I mean, we don’t have the money.”
Clive gets up and paces the room nervously. “If we hadn’t lost our shirts on that Bilco stock, we would’ve had it.”
“I know, but that’s the business. You can’t make money on every trade, otherwise everybody’d be rich. Right?”
Clive doesn’t look convinced. He straddles the side of the desk, knitting his brow. “I don’t like owing those guys…”
“What choice do we have?” Red walks over to the window, looking out for a minute, then closing the blinds. “If we hadn’t taken their money, we never would’ve been able to buy this business, and we’d both still be stuck knocking our asses out for somebody else in the training program at Bender.”
Red turns back around and grins in an odd way, like it’s the only thing that he can think of doing at that moment. “We wanna be milliionaires by thirty, right? Nobody else was coming up with the cash, so what other choice did we have?”
Clive doesn’t say anything. He’s turning everything over in his mind, then quietly, quieter than I’ve ever heard him say before, “Yeah I guess you’re right…”
The guy Red jumps up. He’s gotten real excited about something all of a sudden. “You know what we should do?”
“What?”
“Go to the pier!”
Clive shakes his head no. “Naw, man, not today…I’m just not into it.”
“C’mon, Clive, what better time? We had a blast before. It’ll take our minds off all this shit…”
And then Red grabs his coat, motioning eagerly to Clive, “C’mon!”
I can smell the sea air now, and my skin feels clammy and damp, I’ve been transported to the old pier on Coney Island. Clive and Red are standing in front of me. Then everything’s in slow motion as they both jump feet first into the swirling black waters. Now I feel like I’m underwater. I feel a heavy pressure against my lungs. I need air. And I remember when I had this feeling before—the first time I was at Clive’s place in the Hamptons, I distinctly remember feeling like this, like I was drowning.
I’m trying to pump my way to the top of the water. But my arms feel heavy and useless. I realize that I’m feeling what Clive is feeling, that my arms are his, my thoughts his. All I can think of is I gotta breathe. I gotta get to the top. But I can’t. And now I feel myself sinking further and further into the depths of the muddy dark water. I’m not aware of much anymore. Except falling.
The next thing I feel is something pulling me to the surface. I can feel Red’s thick arm dragging me up. He grabs my head and forces it out of the water, towing me to the piling.
“Grab it…shit…man…grab it…”
I don’t really know what happened next, I just remember ending back up on the pier, with Red thumping on my chest and screaming, almost crying.
“Breathe, damn it BREATHE, CLIVE, BREATHE!!!!!!” And then I see his soaking face looking puffy and wrinkled, his hair like stringy red seaweed plastered to the side of his face.
“I’m…I’m okay…shit…I’m okay…” I manage to prop myself up on my elbow, weakly. Now we’re walking through the deserted streets of Brooklyn. My clothes are still soaked, and my legs feel like jelly. Neither of us is saying anything.
Red turns to me, like there’s something he’s been wanting to say. “I guess that was pretty stupid…jumping off the pier, I mean.”
I’m cold and damp, my teeth are chattering, as I turn to him. “It was, but…” And I stop, looking into his bloodshot eyes.
“You saved my life. Thanks…”
Red just nodded. He doesn’t say anything right away, then after a long pause…”It’s the least I could do…it’s not like you wanted to go…”
I don’t want to make him feel any worse than he already did, so I slap him on the back saying weakly, “Hey we’re brothers…so don’t trip…it’s okay…”
But he turns away, hiding his face from the light. “Clive, I’m scared.”
I stop, looking dead at him. “What did that guy really say?”
He hesitates, avoiding my eyes. Taking a deep breath, then blurting out quickly…”That it was either the business or the money.”
“Shit…did he say when, did he give any kind of deadline or anything!”
Red just shakes his head numbly. “No.”
“Then you need to talk to your father. Now! Red. Right now! Those guys don’t play…they can fuck us both up, and nobody would know a thing!”
“I know…I just didn’t want to. I wanted to do it on my own for once…I’m so tired of having to go to him…” Red sinks down on the sidewalk, holding his head, like he wants to cry, saying, almost wailing, “Always my father, always having to run to him, Sean Callhan, the enforcer, the tough guy. I just wanted to handle it on my own for once.”
I get this feeling in my gut that it wasn’t going to be all right, that we have to do something fast. I turn Red around, facing him squarely, shaking him hard. “Look, now’s not the time to play hero. Talk to your father, Red. Talk to him!”
But I can’t hear what Red’s saying, because suddenly there was a screech of brakes, and a car careens around the corner, tilting on its wheels crazily. A long thin tip of a gun is pointed out the window, and I don’t hear anything, but a POP. A silencer. And Red crumples on the ground in front of me. “RED!”
The car has disappeared. Red is on the ground, a hole the size of a crater in his head, with blood flowing out. I see him, but I don’t, I can’t. I kneel down, holding him in my arms…”Red…Red…don’t die…Don’t…don…God…Nooooo!” I’m crying because I know it is already too late.
Clive is sitting in his office alone. Boxes packed up around him. Someone is taking the name off the door: CALLAHAN & JANUARY CAPITAL CORP. The workman sticks his head in the door, asking, “You want this, mister?” He holds up the sign. Clive looks at it, and then slowly takes it out of the workman’s hand.
Without saying anything, he numbly walks back into his office, still clutching the sign, then carefully he lays it on his desk. Running his hands across the letters, saying softly, “Red, why, you too, why? You were my brother. Why are you gone, too?” And he lays his head on the sign, bitter tears falling silently on the cold steel letters. Then I notice a kid standing in the doorway watching Clive’s shoulders shake with sobs.
The kid kinda tentatively walks over to Clive, saying like he was real concerned, “Uh, mister, are you okay?”
Clive looks up, his eyes red and swollen. Disoriented, like he wasn’t quite sure where he was.
The kid asks him again, “Are you okay…Is there anything…?”
Now Clive cuts him off. “Who are you?”
Th
e kid looks surprised, like that wasn’t what he expected to hear, but recovering quickly says, “Albert Wilkins, sir. The other guy who was here, Mr. Callahan, asked me to come back today. He said he’d buy a case of candy from me.” The kid points to a cardboard box filled with candy.
Clive looks like he’s about to break. Voice real soft, he says, “Red said he’d buy this from you…” Before the boy can answer, Clive reaches in his pocket and takes out some cash, stuffing it in the boy’s hand. The boy looks down at the bill, and then his eyes open wide in amazement, “Wow, mister, this is a hundred dollars. The whole case is only twenty-five…Thanks!”
Clive looks down at the sign, saying sadly, like his heart is going to break in a million pieces. “It’s for him, for Red. He would’ve done it.”
Clouds. Clouds of time, passing quickly. I’m back in the apartment he shares with Laurel. The same night I saw before. Like he picked up the same thread of memory. Laurel is angry, angrier than before. “Always a plan, some scheme, like the one with Red. Is that what you want, to end up like Red…shot dead on some street corner?”
“These aren’t the same people. It’s different, I tell you. It’s totally different!”
“But they’re the same kind of people…Clive, please…please don’t do this. You can’t trust Andy…I know it and you know it. At least don’t bring him in on it.”
I felt a hard bump on my head, then woke in my own bed. The dream evaporated in the darkness. Haunted, I couldn’t get it out of my head. Red. Sean Callahan, I quickly wrote down the names before I forgot them, Andy Haven, him again.
Tomorrow, I’d be on his ass like white on rice. I was beginning to feel the downward spiral of Clive’s life. And the funny thing is that it felt like my own. Maybe that’s why he could come through me the way he did, ’cause I was drowning in the same kind of frustration and hopelessness that he’d been in. And it killed him. Suddenly, I heard inside my head…
“We’re the same you and I. Bob Greene.”
I jumped up ’cause I wasn’t dreamin’ no more. I heard his words in my head clear as if he was right in front of me.
“How do you know me?” I shouted in my head. In front of me I could see his eyes. Dark, unblinking. Just staring ahead. Nothin’ else, just his eyes. And I knew he was with me.
“I know you, ’cause you’re me. And I’m you. I see the same hole in you that’s in me. You can’t see it. But you feel it, Bob. Every day of your life you feel it. Just like I did.”
I was confused. I didn’t know what to say, but I didn’t have to because my thoughts were words, and he was answering them.
“Think back to the first time you felt it, Bob.”
Shit. I began cryin’. Not sobbin’ or nothin’, but I could see my life from the time I was four years old…
“Dad…” I ran over to him and tried to take his hand.
“Not now. I ain’t got time, Bobby. I got things to do.” He pushed me away and walked over to the table and picked up his glass.
“Clive, how do you know what…?” But all I could see were his eyes. Unblinking still. But looking away from me now. And I felt the sadness, the pain of dying without knowing why. A heaviness shrouded me. I didn’t know if it was his or mine. “Clive!” He closed his eyes and was gone.
I shuddered and reached for the bottle of Jack. But as I raised it to my lips, I suddenly didn’t want it anymore. It couldn’t cure what was eating away at me. Only I could do that by looking in.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
“Detective, I think that I have the right to see your subpoena for these records.”
I looked over at Haven, his pudgy brown face looked like a rotten plum ready to burst. His hands shook and his entire compact body quivered as he watched police officers load files into large boxes marked EVIDENCE.
“Detective, do you hear me? You just can’t come into my office and start ordering my staff to remove files. This is a place of business!”
I was gonna let him rattle on a little longer, but I was getting damn sick of hearing his mouth at this point. I took out the subpoena and waved it in his face. “This, Mr. Haven, gives me the authority to take the files and any other shit I think might be evidence in this murder investigation. So if you’ll just move out the way so my boys can work, it’ll make it a whole lot easier on all of us. Yourself included.”
He glared at me, yelling out to his assistant, “Cindy, get Bill Carter on the phone. Now!”
Her face flushed red, and she fumbled with the phone, whispering loudly, “But, Mr. Haven, he’s out of town, remember you said—”
He turned and shouted so that anybody within ten miles coulda heard him. “Well then get one of the other lawyers at the firm! He’s not the only one that works there. Damn it! Are you stupid or just incompetent? Do it now!”
He turned like he was gonna light into me, hissing, “Detective, I don’t care what kind of God damned subpoena you have. Nobody comes into my office and just takes files. Who the hell do you think you are?”
I smirked and got right up in his face, calmly saying, “Your dedicated public servant. The one your tax dollars pays for every God damn mother fuckin’ month. Any more questions?” I turned my back on him. I truly think that if he’d had a gun, he probably would’ve shot me dead right there. I just laughed to myself. I had him just where I wanted him. He’d probably spill his guts as mad as he was without even thinking.
“Oh, I almost forgot. I’m gonna need to ask you some more questions, Mr. Haven, if you got a few minutes now.” With the vibe he was sending my way, if looks could kill, I’d be dead right now.
“I will not talk to you or to any other person without my lawyer.”
“No problem, just bring him with you to the station, ’cause I need to talk to you today.” I figured I’d done enough to ruffle his feathers for the moment. I wandered down the hall. The carpet was red, that money looking Wall Street red, not the cracked linoleum I was used to at the station. At the end of the hall was a double door, closed tightly. By the looks of the light spot on the paint on the wall, I could see that somebody’s name had been there. I figured it was probably Clive’s.
I pushed open the door and clicked on the light. In front of a picture window so big you could almost see to the tip of Manhattan, was a semi-circular desk, polished wood, or at least used to be polished. Right now, there was about an inch of dust on it. Dark green leather couches faced each other with a glass table in between. More dust on the table covered a bunch of crystal paperweights on it.
I picked up one of ’em to get a better look at the writing on the side: “January & Associates, A&L Securities, Initial Public Offering $20,000,000, March 18, 1985.” All of ’em had the same kinda stuff on it, names of companies with big numbers written on it. I wondered how much of a cut Clive got outta all this. No wonder he could live like he did. And me in a one bedroom in Brooklyn. But at least I was alive.
Something told me to check out the desk again. Sometimes there were hidden drawers, even though I figured that Haven would’ve already taken out anything incriminating. Just two sets of drawers. Empty, like I guessed. I was about to check out the rest of the room when my eye caught the bottom of the desk. Nothing special, except that the wood in one rectangular spot was discolored. I got a little closer. Two small nail holes were on the side of the discolored spot under the desk. One of them was jagged like the nail had been ripped out real fast. Now I could see that something had been there, probably bolted to the bottom of the desk where it couldn’t be seen from the front of the desk and behind a drawer slot so that you couldn’t see it from the back either, unless you knew where to look.
I pushed Clive’s chair back and sat in it. Three inches by four inches…My mind wasn’t working for some reason. C’mon, c’mon. Normally a hundred possibilities would’ve sprung in my head. But for some reason, I was just blank. Digging in my pocket, I grabbed a cigarette. The one I kept for times like this. Shit, no ashtrays. I lit up. First time since I tried t
o get that doorman at Laurel’s place to talk, and then I wasn’t really smoking, just trying to get him to spill his guts. I think the nicotine was starting to clear my head, relax me a little.
“Excuse me, Detective?”
I swiveled around quickly and met the scared eyes of the secretary Haven had just chewed out. “I’m sorry to bother you, but Mr. Haven doesn’t allow smoking at the firm. I’m really sorry, and I know you’re working but…”
I looked at her, middle-aged white woman, faded brown hair, eyes ringed, probably younger than she looked. Hell, working for an asshole like Haven would age anybody. I felt kinda sorry for her, so instead of giving her what for, I just smashed the cigarette out on a piece of paper. “No problem. I was leaving anyway.” For the moment that is, cause I’d be back.
* * *
“We can go in here.” I motioned Haven and his lawyer into the interrogation room, pulling back two metal chairs for them. I never sat when I questioned witnesses. It put ’em more off center if I could just meander around the room. That way they never knew where I was coming from. “So, Mr. Haven, did Clive January ever mention any new accounts that were, shall we say, a little out of the ordinary?”
Haven stiffened and looked sidelong at his lawyer, who nodded for him to answer. “What do you mean by out of the ordinary?”
“Oh, I don’t know. Why don’t you tell me what ordinary is?”
“Any institutional clients with the assets to trade large volume of stock. Our clients run the gamut from insurance companies, pension funds, and occasionally high net worth individuals.”
“So then if I came to you and wanted to buy some stock, what would you say?”
“You’re obviously not a high net worth individual, so we wouldn’t even be having this conversation.”
“Ok, so then regular guys like myself, would not be ‘ordinary’ type of clients.”
“Yes, that’s right.”
A Dead Man Speaks Page 20
