"You miss her," said Beth, her fingers gently stroking my forehead, easing the surge of fear and anger at my own impotence that arose whenever I thought about what was happening at the trial. The smooth brush of her fingertips was drowsing and I didn't hear what she said at first, so she repeated it. "You miss her."
"Yes," I said, and I did. It felt like there was a gap in my life, like something marvelous and strange had just up and disappeared. I wondered if this was what a dog felt after being fixed.
"How bad does it hurt?" she asked.
"Bad," I said. "I don't want to talk about it. How about you? Tell me about Alberto." I rolled the "r" as I said the name.
"Alberto. Sweet Alberto. He is very handsome and very kind and his accent is wonderfully sexy. A prize, really."
"And that is why you dumped him?"
"You've been listening to gossip," she said. And then, after a pause, "I guess he was too happy, too contented. He accepted the world for what it was and accepted his place in it."
"Suddenly I'm jealous," I said. "That might just be the very recipe for happiness."
"I've been with you too long, Victor, with your cynicism, your bitterness, your dissatisfaction. After my years with you, how could I ever bear the cheerful acceptance and bland optimism of the Albertos of the world?"
"Alone again, just the two of us," I said, and then I joked, "It looks like we're stuck with each other."
She just stroked my hair and said nothing for a long while, so long a while that if it had been anyone other than my best friend Beth it would have been awkward. But it wasn't awkward. She stroked my brow and eased me into a state just above sleep and the two of us remained like that for quite a while.
"It's never going to happen, is it?" she said finally.
"I don't think so," I said.
"Why not, Victor?"
"It's just not there. No matter how much we wish it were, it just isn't. It would be too perfect anyway, too easy."
"I could live with easy," she said.
"Shhh. I am so tired."
"I could damn well live with easy."
"Shhh." I closed my eyes and felt the softness of her fingers through my hair. "I need to sleep. Just a little nap. Shhh. We'll talk later, later, I promise, but just let me sleep a little first."
When I woke on my couch the next morning she was gone.
51
I ARRIVED AT THE COURTHOUSE late to find Judge Gimbel beet-red in anger at me. With the jury waiting in their stuffy little room he gave me a ten-minute lecture on the need for punctuality in the legal system, explaining in wildly mixed metaphors how any delay, like a falling domino, can upset the entire applecart of justice. He was going to hold me in contempt, he said, fine me for each minute I was late, and if it happened again, did I understand, I would land myself in jail, did I understand, as sure as I was standing there, did I understand.
I told him I understood.
And then, after pronouncing my sentence and the terms of my probation, he demanded an explanation for my inexcusable tardiness. Well, he told me, well, Mr. Carl, well, he told me, he was waiting.
"I was shot at this morning by an unknown assailant," I told the judge.
That shut the gape in his great prune face.
"It was not the first time I had been shot at during the span of this trial, Your Honor. The police detained me for questioning, which is why I was delayed."
So much for my contempt citation.
It again had happened outside my apartment. Two shots. One had spattered the edge of a concrete windowsill just by my head, sending shards spraying in a violent cloud of tiny, incising projectiles that cut a delicate red blossom into the skin around my left eye. The second shot had powered into my briefcase, reflexively jerked chest high after the first spray of cement. They had found the bullet lodged two-thirds of the way through my copy of the Federal Criminal Code and Rules.
Yes, the law had indeed saved my life.
After the second shot I dropped prone, more out of paralytic shock than any well-trained defensive instinct, and scooted, on forearms and shins, like a soldier scoots beneath barbed wire, scooted to the side of a parked car and rolled into the gutter between the car's tires. I lay there, waiting, hoping that somebody had called the police, thinking of Chuckie Lamb bleeding to death in the rain in Washington Square.
Five minutes of waiting, five minutes that seemed like five years, five minutes until the police car came. Two officers picked me off the street and led me to the back seat of their car. I sat there, dazed and bleeding, behind the thick wire division, like a criminal, telling my story to the same young officer who had handled the shattered car window just a few weeks before. Whatever had happened, I knew it was beyond him.
"I want to talk to ADA Slocum," I said.
"On a crime like this," said the cop with an annoying condescension, "we don't bring in the DA until we have a perpetrator."
"I'm involved in a case he is investigating, Officer," I leaned forward to read his badge. "Officer 3207. He'll be very upset if you don't get hold of him immediately."
"We'll see, sir."
"I don't want you to see, Officer 3207. I want you to do it this instant. Now. Or the commissioner will hear about it, I promise you."
Slocum showed up ten minutes later.
"Oh man," he said, opening the door and sitting beside me in the car. He was in his uniform, navy suit, red tie, rumpled tan raincoat with streaks of black newsprint on his sleeve, where his paper rubbed each morning. "How did I know that trouble was coming to you?"
"This is the second time," I said.
"So I heard. Why didn't you let me know about the first?"
"I thought it might have been just an accident."
"Oh man, you are something," said Slocum. "Whoever the shooter was, he got away again. Nothing left but two casings from a thirty-eight found across the street. We bagged them and we'll check for prints, but don't expect much."
"What are you going to do?" I asked.
"Me, I'm going back to the office, do some work, maybe grab some lunch later, nothing special. But then nobody's been shooting at me. The question, Carl, is what are you going to do?"
"I've got to get to court."
"Slow down. You hate to keep Gimbel waiting, sure. But nothing will screw his calendar like the automatic mistrial because you turn up dead. So tell me who might possibly want to kill Victor Carl."
"They should be taking tickets. Now serving number twenty-six."
"What about your pal Raffaello?"
I shook my head. "The one guy with no reason, yet," I said, though he might just decide there was reason enough if I didn't find out where his money went. "Besides," I continued, "I asked him about the first shot. He said if he wanted me dead I would have been dead. But Jimmy Moore, I think, would like me to disappear."
"I don't doubt it, with the way you went after him yesterday."
I lit up for a second. "You liked that?"
"Not bad."
"And then there's Norvel Goodwin."
Slocum let out a low whistle. "See, I knew something was up when you started asking about him."
"He took me for a ride, told me he had an interest in this case and to back off. When I didn't he left a dachshund with his neck snapped and his belly split on my doorstep."
"He seems to have a thing for dead animals. Something from his childhood, I guess. But what interest could he have in this case?"
I shrugged.
"Anyone else might want to take a shot at you?" he asked.
"Well, my ex-partner and I are feuding. He's a murderous fuck."
"Ex-partners are like that."
"And of course I owe some money to MasterCard."
"They can be brutal, I know."
"I have to get to court."
"Sure you do," he said. "I'll tell the unit to stick around while you put on a clean suit. You have a clean suit, I hope."
"I never needed more than one before."
&nb
sp; "They'll escort you to the courthouse. If you need them again on your way home, let me know. I'll take care of it."
I nodded at him.
"But before you go," he said. "I've been assigned to the Chuckie Lamb killing. You know anything about that?"
"No," I said, "not a thing."
"Because there's something peculiar. I was listening to the 911 tape and the guy who called the murder in, he sounded a lot like you."
"Strange coincidence," I said.
"And a witness spotted a man in a raincoat, about your height and build, running out of Washington Square just before the call."
"Looks like you got your work cut out for you."
"You'd tell me if you knew anything, wouldn't you, Victor?"
"If I knew anything you'd be the first I'd tell," I said. "After the trial."
He sat in the car next to me, shaking his head. "And I'm supposed to wait and see if you live that long." He shook his head some more and then ducked out of the car. He leaned back into the open doorway. "So, Carl, you've called a city councilman a liar in court, you've made an enemy of the biggest drug kingpin in the city and a friend of the biggest mobster, you've had your picture in all the papers, you've been interviewed like a sports star on the evening news, you are hiding information about a homicide, and now you've been shot at twice. How does it feel to hit the big time?"
He didn't wait for an answer. He just laughed and shut the door and strolled over to the cops, who were doing what cops do best, standing in a group and talking about where to eat lunch. But I had an answer for him, I could have told him how it felt. Just then, with blood on my shirt and a chilling nausea riding up my throat, just then it felt surprisingly good. The closest I had ever been to the big time before was watching the parade go by when the Phillies won it all in 1980. Well, I wasn't watching it all go by this time, I was right in the middle of it, maybe getting run over by it, true, but in the middle of it nonetheless, and what I was discovering was that that was just the way I liked it.
When the trial resumed, after gratuitous and insincere inquiries into my well-being, and after I had pulled my notebook and my legal pads and my Federal Criminal Code and Rules from my briefcase, each with a neat round hole through it, Eggert took his turn going after Jimmy. Eggert was very careful in his cross-examination, very deliberate. Bit by bit he went over the story, trying to mold it as much as possible to be consistent with his theory that the extortion and arson and murder were all linked together. It was a very precise, very workmanlike cross. And it was excruciatingly boring.
During one of the many breaks called by the judge to let the yawning jury walk off its drowsiness, I took a stroll down the long courthouse hallway. On my way back I was stopped by Leslie Moore. She was standing with her sister, Renee, but when she saw me she put a hand on Renee's shoulder and came over. Renee stayed about ten feet away, thick arms crossed over her chest, eyeing us suspiciously.
"Oh, Mr. Carl," said Leslie. Her voice was sad and soft, the breathless voice of condolence as one passes through the line greeting the family at a funeral. She was wearing a fine tweed suit, her silk shirt buttoned at the collar, and in the way her arms were held tight to her side and her hands clutched at each other there was something of the shackled prisoner about her. "I was so sorry to hear about what happened this morning."
"Thank you," I said.
"Do you think you are in danger, for real?"
"I'm being careful where I step," I said.
"After what happened to Charles we are all very shaken."
I looked at her carefully, wondering how much she knew. Was there guilt in her eyes? It was Chuckie himself who had told me her problem was that she knew too much, that she knew everything. "It was a tragedy," I said.
She leaned forward slightly and lifted her arm, placing two fingers very close to the array of bandages around my eye, as close as she could come without touching. There was something so genuine about her concern it was startling, as if she herself had sliced my flesh with a fine-bladed knife.
"Be very careful, Mr. Carl. Please," she said. "There's been enough tragedy in too short a time." Was that a warning or a threat? I couldn't tell. "And how is your eye?" she asked.
"It's all right," I said. "Don't worry about it, Mrs. Moore."
"I am a nurse, you know. I don't practice with patients anymore, but I used to. Maybe I should look at the wound."
"No, that won't be necessary," I said quickly. "Why did you stop practicing?"
"There is enough money now," she said, smiling tightly. "Besides, after Nadine I lost the heart for it. I lost the heart for everything."
"I'm sorry," I said, and immediately felt silly for saying it, as if my offhand words could in any way fill the void.
She looked at her sister, creased her brow, and, without turning back to me, she said, "I want you to know that I don't resent the way you brought out in the courtroom my husband's relationship with that woman."
"I'm only doing what I believe I have to do, Mrs. Moore."
"I know. And I don't resent what Chester is doing, either. Tell him, please."
"He'll be glad to know," I said.
"We've all been protecting Jimmy for so long that it has become a habit. Like brushing our teeth or going to church. That's why I can even admire Chester fighting back like he is." She breathed a deep, sad breath. "Though I am paying part of the cost. My husband is a remarkable man, Mr. Carl, but he is not without flaws. And it is impossible to know how hard these last few years have been on both of us. Nadine was a very bright and lively child. She wrote poetry for her high school literary magazine. She was very special."
I stopped myself from apologizing again and stayed quiet. There was something she wanted to say and I could see her struggling with it.
She turned to me and took a step forward and put her hand on my forearm. "You do believe him, don't you, when he says it is over with her?"
"I hope it is so," I said.
"I believe him, I believe in him. That might be my great flaw, Mr. Carl, but what is there to be done? I don't have the strength I used to have. But I was a good nurse once." She smiled at me, leaned even closer, placed her lips very close to my ear. In the whisper of a conspirator she said, "Be very careful, Mr. Carl. Please. It would be horrible if something happened to you. And Chester, too. I've heard the voices on the wind. But tell Chester I won't let them kill him. That he can trust I won't let them."
She once again reached her fingers to my bandages and this time touched them gently before walking away, back to her sister. I watched her go, all that sadness go. She deserved better, I thought, and I realized quite suddenly that she thought so too. But I couldn't help but wonder at those voices in the wind. Time for more lithium, I figured.
Back in the courtroom, as we waited for the jury to reappear, I leaned over to Chester and whispered, "Leslie Moore said something to me over the break about you being in danger. Do you think there is anything to it?"
His head turned quickly and his eyes startled. "From who?"
I shrugged. "She didn't say. Something about voices on the wind."
"Probably voices from a bottle." The way the trial had turned had brought forth from Chet a sarcasm I hadn't seen before. It was quite becoming on him.
"I'm not taking any chances after this morning," I said. I had packed all the clothes I would need for a week and loaded them into my car. For the rest of the trial, I decided, I would live like a terrorist on the lam, never two nights in the same place. "And after what happened to Chuckie," I said to Chester, "you should be careful too."
He pressed his lips together and nodded.
"Leslie also said she would protect you," I added as the door to the back hall opened and we stood as the jury filed in.
He turned around to find her sitting directly behind Jimmy. I turned too. Her hands were on her lap, clasping tightly one the other, and her face held the deep cast of a painful concern as she stared back at Chester.
"You ca
n't know how relieved I am," he said after turning around again, his face calmly looking forward, "to have her on my side."
Early in the afternoon, when Eggert finished his cross and the whole courtroom stretched with relief, Prescott rested Jimmy Moore's defense case.
"We have a few hours before we break for Mr. Lamb's funeral," said the judge. "So you can begin to call your witnesses, Mr. Carl."
The only witness I planned to put on the stand was Veronica. With Chet's two forgery convictions, Eggert and Prescott both would easily make him out to be a liar if he testified, so everything would depend on her, which was fine by me, except she wasn't in the courtroom. I had expected I wouldn't need her until tomorrow.
"Your Honor," I said. "We will have one witness, but if the court will allow, in light of what occurred to me this morning," I was milking it but so what, "in light of the events of this morning, and in deference to the Lamb family, we ask that the court be recessed until tomorrow."
The judge wasn't happy about it, I could see that, being that it was only two o'clock and he could squeeze in another hour and a half of testimony before the scheduled quitting time, but he seemed willing to go along with my request until the disturbance broke out.
"If you could be giving me just a minute," shouted Morris from the back of the courtroom, standing in the aisle with his hand up. He was wearing his shabby hat and a crumpled blue suit dusted heavily with dandruff and his tzitzis were hanging down from beneath his too tight jacket. "Just a minute is all I am needing to talk here with Victor."
One of the marshals, blue blazered, his ear stuffed with ominous plastic, immediately rushed to Morris's side and took hold of his arm. Prescott ducked and the judge cringed. Now that the community of our courtroom knew I was a marked man a noticeable nervousness had set in.
"What is happening here?" said a surprised Morris, trying to pull his arm away from the marshal. "What? Am I now a criminal?"
"Your Honor," I said. "Can I have a minute?"
"You know that man?" asked the judge.
"Yes, sir. He is my investigator."
There was a sudden laugh from the group of young lawyers behind Prescott, from Brett with two t's and the others, a laugh at just how ludicrous it was that someone like Morris could be an investigator. People in the audience joined in, it spread gaily.
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