"Veronica," she said, reaching out a slim, soft hand.
"Victor Carl."
"Explain something to me, Victor Carl," she said. "Men with toupees."
"What's to explain?"
"Explain to me why. Look over there by the bar, the man with the dead beaver on his head. Why would a man wear so obvious a rug? You're an initiate to those dark secrets of manhood. Explain toupees to me."
"It's a calculation," I said. "Champagne?"
She smiled and let out a soft giggle that was sexy, not silly. "Yes, please."
I reached across the table for the new bottle the waiter had deposited in the wine bucket and turned over Prescott's unused goblet. I filled her glass and then mine. She tasted the wine and looked at me and gave me that smile again.
"That is so good," she said.
"It is, isn't it. The French." I couldn't understand why I had never before tried to pick up a woman with Dom Perignon.
"I don't remember seeing you here before," she said.
"I'm here with City Councilman James Moore."
"Is that so? What do you think of him?"
I shrugged. "He's a politician."
"Yes. So tell me about toupees."
"I'm of the theory," I said, "derived from my misspent college career as an economist, that every choice in life is a calculation. Everything we do is the product of a cost-benefit analysis as to what is best for us."
"Everything?"
"Everything. Now that fellow at the bar has calculated that he looks better with hair, even when that hair lays on his head like a dead rodent. And who's to say he's wrong?"
"Me."
"You've never seen him bald. I'm sure he feels a lot peppier looking fifty with the hairpiece than sixty-five without it."
"But couldn't he get a better looking one?" she asked.
"That's where calculation becomes miscalculation. He thinks it's snazzy."
"Oh, it's snazzy all right. I don't believe everything is calculation, Victor Carl," she said.
"Because you don't want to believe."
"What about love?"
"The biggest calculation of them all. We each have lists of qualities we're looking for and love comes when enough of the boxes are checked, or at least we get as many checks as we think we're going to get."
"How romantic."
"Some fellow won a Nobel Prize for coming up with that."
"He must be a charmer."
"I'm sure his wife appreciates him."
"Well, I'll tell you something, Victor Carl. I don't believe it, and you don't believe it either."
"I don't?"
"I read eyes like some people read palms and I'll tell you what your eyes say."
She brought her face close and put her soft fingers on my cheek and brow, peering into my eyes as if she were reading something writ in tiny letters on my retinae. Her breath smelled sweet and dry from the champagne and as she looked into my eyes I felt as if I were drowning in pale blue waters. Then she pulled back suddenly.
"See, I was right," she said.
"What did you see?"
"I saw enough to know."
"Tell me what you saw," I said, only partly joking now.
I heard the scrape of a chair and Jimmy Moore sat down next to Veronica and all of a sudden I was embarrassed, as if this woman who had just been gazing into my eyes should be kept away from the likes of Jimmy Moore. Even so, I was about to introduce them when Jimmy said, "I thought they'd never leave," and Veronica stretched her long beautiful neck and turned away from me, resting her chin on the back of her hand, facing Jimmy. I looked at the bar and saw the aggressively curved woman there laughing with a man who had his arm around her neck, and with a sickening disappointment I realized that sitting next to me was not a woman mysteriously attracted to my smile and wit but instead was Jimmy Moore's mistress. It was enough to break my heart in two.
7
EVEN IN THE BEST OF TIMES I am not one of those people who leap out of bed in the morning ready to attack any challenge the day might bring. I wake like I enter a swimming pool, slowly, hesitantly, one step at a time as my body gradually becomes accustomed to the cold. The morning after the night before, with my head swollen from the councilman's champagne and my legs sore from I knew not what, I might have stayed comfortably unconscious until noon except for a shrieking pain in my bladder that demanded, DEMANDED, attention. Good thing, too, since as I was pissing relievedly at 9:05 I realized I had to be in Judge Gimbel's courtroom at 10:00 in United States v. Moore and Concannon.
I didn't remember all of what happened after the fourth bottle of champagne the night before. I remembered Veronica, who grew more beautiful by the drink until I would have sworn I had never seen anyone as perfect before, and Jimmy Moore, growing larger, louder, ever more powerful, ever more passionate, and Chuckie Lamb, his surliness expanding with the hour, and Chester Concannon, easing our transitions as we moved in a group from club to club. There was Henry, the councilman's driver, a handsome, silent Jamaican with purple-black skin and a high forehead, standing just over six feet tall and sporting evil looking sunglasses despite the darkness. And then of course the limousine, that great black cat of a car. It had a boomerang hovering over its trunk and a bar and television in back and it wasn't rented, it was owned by the councilman and cared for by Henry, so it was clean as soap and it shined in the city light and moved as smoothly and as predatorily as a panther through the night. I remembered that car all right. My first limousine ride, looking out the darkened windows at those who could only wonder who we were to deserve such splendor. I had always hated limousines, their ostentation, their imposing bulk, the way they tied up traffic on tight streets, parked in front of restaurants too expensive for me, the way they proclaimed that the people inside were somebodies, names, and that the people outside were nobodies, the nameless. I had always hated limousines, but I had to admit that viewed from inside they were entirely more benign.
"Want a rose, Ronnie?" said Jimmy, lowering his window and snapping his fingers at an Asian girl carrying a basket of cellophane-wrapped flowers in the street. We had walked from DiLullo's to an open Art Deco club with swarms of hunters, where we had shared another bottle, and now we were in the limousine heading to some other of the councilman's haunts.
"I don't need anything," said Veronica.
"Buy a rose for Veronica," said Jimmy to Chuckie Lamb, who immediately fished into his pocket for dollar bills.
"Aren't they Moonies?" asked Veronica.
"Moonies have a right to eat too," said Concannon.
"And we need a pin with it," said Jimmy.
"Two dollar," said the girl into the window. She was far too perky for that time of night.
"Help her on with it, Victor," said Jimmy.
I took the flower and slipped my fingers beneath Veronica's shoulder strap so as not to jab her collarbone, fiddling the stem's pin into the thick cotton of the strap. I felt the softness of her skin on the back of my fingers. She looked down at my hands as I worked and I wished I'd had a manicure at least once in my life. There was something about Veronica that was so delicately beautiful it hurt. Her face had a sad cast about it, and the coltish way she moved was sad, and the way her head hung low was sad. But every now and then, like a gift, was that smile, brilliant, promising. Though she watched closely as I fastened the flower to her strap, and though I was embarrassed at my peeling cuticles and cracked nails, I couldn't help but linger.
I was in an entourage, and the very idea of it was thrilling. At some point in the evening a few others joined up, a state senator, an afternoon disc jockey, a famous jazz musician, and we rode around in that car together, hitting place after place, first the waterfront, then South Philly, then an after-hours place above a storefront off Market. Each club was different in design but all had the same atmosphere of practiced decadence. I was tired, and I knew I had to be in court the next day, but there was something about being in an entourage, even the entourage of a luminary a
s small-time as Jimmy Moore. Whenever Jimmy Moore arrived, his group trailing behind him, doors opened, greetings were warmly given, corks popped like firecrackers off perfectly cooled bottles. He could have been Eddie Murphy, Leon Spinks, hell, he could have been Elvis. And as I was with him, part of the grandeur splashed off on me. It didn't seem to matter a whit what I actually thought of the man. Throughout the night I had tried to pull out, to get to bed, but always Jimmy would tell me one more place and Veronica would flash that smile and I would duck with the rest of them back into the limousine.
"Club Purgatory," said Jimmy.
"Yaboss," said Henry through the partition and we were on our way.
"Prescott says you do real estate law," said Moore.
"Just this fraud case we've settled," I said.
"We might need a real estate lawyer," said Moore.
"I don't really do too much."
"Ronnie's having trouble with her landlord," said Moore.
"He is being quite unreasonable," said Veronica.
"Give me your card, Victor," said Moore.
I nervously patted my jacket. In the inside pocket I found a card, corners bent, the old, still optimistic name of our firm listed, but my name front and center in solid black printing. I handed it to him.
"Guthrie, Derringer and Carl," said Moore.
"Guthrie left," I said.
"Here, Ronnie," said Moore. "If that Greek bastard hands you any more trouble you give Victor here a call."
"I will," she said, and she tossed me that smile and then and there I hoped that the Greek bastard, whoever he was, gave her a peck of trouble soon.
"You'll do a fine job, Victor," said Jimmy Moore. "I know it. I wouldn't leave Chester with anyone but the best."
"I appreciate your confidence," I said. Concannon was looking out the window as we spoke.
"Be sure you do," said Jimmy. "I have a feeling you're going places, Victor. And I'll help you get there. Just be sure where you're going is where you want to be."
"I don't understand."
"Up or down, boy?" said Jimmy. "It's your choice. Choose up."
"He wants to make sure you stick with the program," said Chuckie.
"Up or down, boy?"
"Victor will stay out of trouble," said Chester softly.
"Keep your eye on this one, Ronnie," said Jimmy with a loud and dangerous laugh as he wagged a finger at me. "He is going places."
That's what I remembered as I dressed for court, hurrying out of the shower and putting on my shirt while my skin was still wet, so that the cotton stuck to my back, and tying my tie frantically and sloppily. And I remembered also that as the limousine had dropped me off in front of my building and slid away into the night, leaving me alone on the deserted street, facing nothing but the emptiness of my apartment and the loneliness of my bed, and with the bud of nausea starting its gorgeous blossom in the pit of my champagne-sloshed stomach, I couldn't help but laugh, long and out loud, a laugh that had echoed like the howl of a hyena through the dark, empty street and had announced to the whole of the world that finally, dammit, I was on my way.
8
JUDGE GIMBEL'S COURTROOM was like all the courtrooms in the Federal Courthouse, two stories high, wood paneled, dark, designed with a ridged modern texture that was dated even as the workmen were slapping it onto the new building's steel girders. Scattered in the benches were twenty-five lawyers waiting for Judge Gimbel's status call, twenty-five lawyers at, let's say, a total of $5,000 an hour, waiting for His Honor, who was already half an hour late. He had probably stopped off at the ACME to pick up a sack of potatoes on special, saving himself forty-nine cents and costing all the litigants together $2,500. Thus the efficient engine of the law. Seated with the lawyers racking up their billable hours were the print and television reporters covering the Jimmy Moore case. Some were clustered around Chuckie Lamb, who was releasing the councilman's statement for the day. Moore, Concannon, and Prescott huddled together in the corner. I was sitting alone, merrily letting my meter run at my new and inflated rate of $250 an hour. Safely within my inside jacket pocket was a fifteen-thousand-dollar check drawn upon the account of "Citizens for a United Philadelphia," or CUP, Moore's political action committee. When I saw it was CUP that was paying my retainer for Concannon's defense I balked a bit, but not too much.
"I'd rather it come from a different source," I said to Prescott after he had handed the check to me outside the courtroom. "Like from Concannon himself."
"I don't believe Chester could pay two hundred and fifty dollars an hour," explained Prescott. "By the way, there is a CUP fund-raiser for the councilman's new youth center tonight at the Art Museum. You should come. Definitely. I'll put you on the list. You do have a tuxedo, don't you?" asked Prescott, his voice suddenly as snide as Winston Osbourne's in its prime.
"Yes," I said, conscious of the insult.
"There will be some people there you should know," he said, his tone once again avuncular. "It's never too early to start meeting the right people."
"But about the check."
"Don't worry, Victor. Concannon is on the board of directors of CUP and his indemnification is provided for by the committee's bylaws. It is all perfectly legal, I assure you. Take it."
So I took it, and stuffed it in my pocket, and sat with it in the courtroom, thinking of the black-tie affair to which I had just been invited, wondering at all the important people there to whom Prescott would introduce me. I was imagining the scene, sparkling with tuxedos and gowns in a pure black and white, like a Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers movie, when I was tapped on the shoulder by a tall, pale man.
"You Carl?" he asked.
I nodded.
"Let's talk," he said, giving a toss to his head in the general direction of the hallway.
He wore a blue suit, a red tie, black, heavy police shoes, the generic uniform of a prosecutor. There was a weariness in his eye, a sense of having seen it all before. Prosecutors have two primary expressions, one of weary cynicism when they think they are being lied to, which is often, and one of weary self-righteousness when they believe themselves to be the last bastions of truth and justice in the world, which is always. These expressions are as much a part of the uniform as the red ties. When they hire on with the government they must be sent down to Washington to train with an army of mimes in a basement of the Justice Department building, mastering their weary expressions.
"I'm Marshall Eggert," he said, perfunctorily holding out his hand when we reached the hallway. It was like grabbing hold of an eel. "I'm prosecuting the Moore case. I understand you'll be representing Concannon."
"That's right."
"We're glad as hell that McCrae's off the case," he said. "If we had known that's all it took we would have taken him out for some Peking duck months ago."
"Your sympathy is heartwarming," I said.
"We could never get McCrae to accept a deal for Concannon. Could never get him to even consider one."
"What kind of deal?" I asked warily.
"We'll drop everything down to one felony and recommend a minimal term. And we won't object if the Bureau of Prisons gets soft and sends him to a Level 1 facility like Allenwood."
"And what does he do?"
"Testify."
"Against his boss."
"Exactly."
"And for that he gets jail time? It won't happen, Marshall, can I call you Marshall? Chet Concannon's a stand-up guy. He won't flip."
Eggert sniffed at me. "What would he want?"
Good question. Truthfully, I had no idea what Chester Concannon would want to testify against his boss, but I knew exactly what I wanted here. "Complete immunity," I said.
"You know better than that, Carl. We would never give immunity in a case like this."
I shrugged.
"Your boy's in a tough spot," said Eggert, who had dropped a hand into his navy blue pants pocket and was now jingling his loose change. "With his priors he's looking at serious time. And he's lia
ble to be caught in the crossfire between the government and Moore. If I were you I'd be jumping out of my pants to make a deal. Look everything over, talk to Concannon. We'll keep our offer open for a week, but then it disappears. Now how much time will you need to get ready for trial? We're willing to be flexible."
"Trial's in a week and a half," I said. "That should be enough."
The jingling stopped suddenly and Eggert's expression shifted to weary incredulity. He sniffed twice, cracked a weary smile, and the jingling began again. "Ever tried a racketeering case before, Carl?"
"No."
"This is not your usual rear-ender. There are tapes, there are boxes of documents, there are reams of financial records, there are over a thousand pages of Jencks Act material from the grand jury. And there's a half a million dollars flowing from the good guys to the bad guys, a half million we can't all account for. This is complex stuff. There's no way you can be ready in a week and a half."
"I'll work overtime," I said.
"Listen, pal, if you don't ask for more time I'm going to demand it, and make you look like a fool in the process. I'm not going to have my conviction overturned upstairs because of your incompetence."
My eyes were watering, so I turned aside and looked down the hall. "You started the clock running when you indicted, Marshall. Time to step up to the line, ready or not."
"Oh, we'll be ready," he said, the jingling of his change growing furious. "The government is always ready. But you'd be well advised to be careful here, Carl. These people you're palling around with now, they're not boy scouts. Bissonette would tell you so if he could talk out a skull still as soft as a ripe guava. And fat Pete McCrae, whom you replaced, that piece of duck might have done him a favor. He was two weeks from getting indicted himself."
"I can look out for myself," I said.
"I don't know how you fell into this case, Carl," he said, "but trust me when I tell you that you didn't fall in clover."
Then Marshall Eggert, a knight in cheap navy blue wool and clunky black shoes, a weary prosecutor weighed down by all his grave and portentous righteousness, Marshall Eggert turned from me and stalked back into the courtroom. Well, I could never say I hadn't been warned.
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