Raw Deal
Page 31
“Oh Deal,” she said. Her tears were flowing freely now.
“I can’t get up,” he said. “I want to kiss you and I can’t get up.”
She shook her head. “I can’t bend over,” she said helplessly. She glanced down at the walker. “I can’t let go of this damned thing. I made them let me walk in here, but I can’t let go of this thing.”
But he wasn’t listening. He was fighting up off his pillows as she spoke, she was flinging the walker aside as he did. Her embrace was the promise of life itself.
Chapter 47
“What’s that thing on the wall?” the woman asked. She was sitting across from him in the new office, rearranging herself on the chair he’d had delivered yesterday from Office Mart. He hadn’t bothered to try it out. If it was as uncomfortable as the number he was on, he didn’t want to know about it.
She’d dried her sniffles, had gotten her voice under control finally. She was fifty trying to look thirty. Too bad, he thought. She’d be a drop-dead fifty.
It had taken her a while to get through the story. Some sleazewad who couldn’t appreciate it had hooked up with her, run off with her car and the cash he hadn’t talked her into spending yet. The cops had been sympathetic. The guy had done the same thing to a couple of other nice ladies in town. But they doubted they’d ever catch the guy. The question on the table was whether he could—this private detective, who if the truth were known was meeting with his very first client. Take a note, he thought, speaking to an imaginary secretary: Thank Berto and the boys down at Metro for this referral.
“It’s just a memento,” he said finally.
“That’s an odd memento,” she said. She was quiet for a moment, studying the arrangement.
“I would think you’d have something to advertise how you uncovered that Torreno scandal,” she said. “What you two men went through…” She broke off and turned to him, shaking her head, her eyes wide.
Driscoll turned away, reddening. “Just a public service,” he mumbled. They had nailed Torreno, of course, uncovered his embezzlements, even connected him to the museum bombing and the murder of the Valles brothers. Driscoll had, in fact, received a letter of thanks from Jorge Vas, the chairman of the Patriots’ Foundation himself, expressing gratitude for Driscoll’s efforts on their behalf. He supposed he could frame that letter, but the irony seemed a bit rich.
What still galled him was that the subsequent search of Torreno’s property, delayed by the department for reasons never made clear to Driscoll, had not yielded the biggest prize. No notes, no documents, no letter from the President. Any chance of proving the deal Torreno had cut with the government had gone to the grave with Tommy Holsum. Half a loaf, Driscoll told himself. Half a loaf.
He shook his head to clear it and glanced up at the thing his new client had pointed out. Actually it looked like a piece of art, some kind of weird collage, framed and matted behind glass like it was: a spray of gears, spindles, a metal case. There were two mangled batteries and a tiny notebook, its leather cover pierced by a neat hole. A bird’s-nest swirl of micro Mylar tape held it all together. His partner’s wife’s idea, framing the shattered tape recorder that had saved his life.
He rubbed his chest absently, remembering the night the bullet had struck him—and how could he not, the only time in his life he’d ever been shot. If he pressed down hard, he believed, he could feel the knot of the slug they’d left inside him, even though the doctors claimed it was impossible.
The whine of the tattoo needle from the shop next door started up, bringing him out of his reverie. He wondered if the woman heard it too. He worried about how the sound carried in the cheap offices, but what the hey, he was just starting out. “My partner gave that to me,” he said finally. “I call it ‘Shape of a Fat Man’s Luck’.”
“You don’t look so fat,” she said, giving him an appraising look. He felt the color rising in his cheeks. She was a lovely woman.
“Which one are you again?” she asked, studying the card he’d given her. “Driscoll? Or Deal?”
He laughed then. “Oh, I’m Driscoll,” he said. “The other guy builds houses.”
She stared at him, puzzled. “He’s not a detective? Then why is his name on the agency?”
Driscoll laughed again, felt a twinge in his ribs. “It’s a long story, ma’am,” he said.
Behind the puzzlement in her eyes was the pain that had brought her into his office. He had a sudden flash then, of all the people who’d been drawn to this oddest of cities, of all the bewilderment and sadness out there. And then he found himself thinking of dark water. Of creatures feeding upon one another, of the snake that eats its tail. He’d found himself thinking about a lot of things lately, and he thought that was good.
He smiled at the puzzled, pain-filled lady, pointed at the card she held. “But trust me. I wouldn’t have it any other way.”
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