“Not worthless enough. I once saw a taxidermied monkey’s paw in a curio shop. A single little paw with humanlike fingers and pale-yellow nails. The skin was ebony and there were tufts of hair, and the way it was shaped, with a deformed twist, it formed a terrifying maw, like the mouth of some horrid alien creature. And the mouth was talking to me.”
“What was it saying?”
“‘Feed me,’ it said. ‘Feed my paw.’ ”
“When are we having sex, Victor?”
“I can fling your leg over my shoulder and have your breast in my mouth in fifteen minutes.”
“I have to warn you. You’ll be bitterly disappointed.”
“I doubt it,” I said. But damn if she wasn’t right.
CHAPTER 25
THE MANNEKEN PIS
Connie Devereaux dropped her desiccated claw onto my knee and gave a squeeze. “You are such a darling. Why I could just eat you alive.”
“I don’t doubt it, Connie,” I said and we both laughed and laughed.
We were alone in her parlor, sitting side by side on a love seat, sharing a convivial drink made for us by dear Reginald before he sullenly backed out of the room. My bag was beside me on the floor, two crystal bowls on the coffee table were filled with sweet bundles of cash, and Connie’s blouse was coming undone, giving me a view of her liver-speckled flesh and the shriveled tops of breasts stuffed like limp jack-in-the-boxes into her black lace bra. It was all I could do to stop myself from gagging, and that was before she leaned over and bit my earlobe, hard.
“Yikes,” I said. “What sharp teeth you have.”
“That, my dear boy, is a warning.”
I pulled at my ear. “Is it bleeding?”
“Give it time. The police have come asking questions.”
“McDeiss?”
“That was one of the names, yes. A big mass of a man. They do grow them big in Philadelphia. How did they know of me? Have you been indiscreet?”
“I am the very soul of discretion,” I said, “but there has been a leak. I’m on it, though. I’ll plug it one way or the other.”
“See that you do. All the kerfuffle has troubled me greatly. I have told the Congressman that I might have to turn off the spigot. And in any event, he hasn’t been very solicitous lately. He isn’t returning my calls, and neither is that lackey of his, that Tom Mitchum person, who always looks like he just came from a funeral.”
“The Congressman has to be extra careful these days.”
“I understand. With the papers linking him to a murder, it is a trying time for all of his supporters. And how unfortunate that the link was through you, Victor darling.”
“It couldn’t be avoided.”
“Isn’t that what Admiral Kimmel said of Pearl Harbor before they took his stars? But because I can’t so easily contact my congressman anymore, I must send my messages through you. Can I trust you to be a reliable go-between?”
“Yes, Connie, you can trust me as much as any politician.”
“Now you’re being funny? Good. Drink up, Victor. Maybe we’ll play some today.”
“Oh, I won’t be much fun. Isn’t Heywood around? His pectorals are so much bigger than mine.”
“They are, aren’t they?” She sidled closer and rubbed my chest through the suit jacket. “My heavens, Victor, I can feel the bones beneath your flesh. You have the chest of a sparrow. You should work out more.”
“I would if it wasn’t such work.”
“Muscles are very becoming in a man, and Heywood certainly is becoming.”
“Becoming what?”
“Oh, you. But today is his day off and I’m lonely.”
“You have Reginald to keep you company.”
“I’m getting tired of Reginald.”
“I think we’re all getting tired of Reginald. So what is it you want me to pass on to the Congressman?”
“That I am growing impatient.”
“With what?”
“Oh, he’ll know. My Heywood is little more than a clenched muscle in both the chest and the head. He doesn’t have your charm.”
“Few do,” I said.
“But he satisfies me, Victor. Oh, does he satisfy me. And so I keep him on. If he failed to satisfy me, I would drop him like a dead trout. You tell the Congressman that I am not feeling satisfied and he is beginning to smell like a rotting fish.”
“And what is it that will satisfy you, Connie?”
“Just let him know that if a certain bill doesn’t pass out of his committee and soon, I might have trouble rustling up enough ready cash to fill your bag. And tell him that I like Mr. Bettenhauser’s smile. It does something to my stomach. I have the urge to nuzzle the war hero’s neck. Did you get all that?”
“Oh, yes, I got all that.”
“Good,” she said, giving my leg another squeeze. “Now, Victor, tell me about yourself. What do you like? Do you want to know what I like?”
“I suppose you’re going to tell me.”
“Everything,” she said.
When I managed to leave that room with my bag full, my pants still on, and the faint vestiges of my remaining virtue still intact, Reginald was standing stiffly by the house’s front door, a disapproving mannequin in his pin-striped suit. His perfect blue tie was tied with a perfect double Windsor. The pack of purebred fur balls swam like a school of piranhas about his shiny black oxfords. He eyed my bulging bag like I was taking out the afternoon sewage.
“Perky boss you’ve got there,” I said.
“I hope you remembered everything,” said Reginald. “We wouldn’t want you leaving anything behind.”
“I didn’t bring a hat.”
“That’s not what I was referring to.”
“You don’t approve of me, do you, Reginald?”
“Your powers of observation are startling.”
“Where are you from? I’m having a hard time placing the accent. London, is it?”
“The outskirts.”
“The outskirts of merry old London. God save the Queen and all that rubbish. Pubs and pints and shepherd’s pie, bangers and mash, fish and chips, rotting teeth. I like your tie. What is it?”
“Lanvin,” he said, as if it meant something.
“Get that at Boyds, did you?”
“And that thing around your neck, did you pick that up at Walmart?”
“Target, actually. I’ve gone upscale. Let’s say we swap.”
“I wouldn’t be caught dead in such a thing.”
“Don’t tempt me. You know, it’s funny, your virulent disapproval, because I think we’re pretty similar.”
“Don’t flatter yourself, Victor. Someone like you, with your greasy little bag, you have nothing in common with me.”
“Greasy? Why, I might be insulted if you had actually grown up on the outskirts of London, where the taste in accessories is oh so refined. But I don’t think the air is so rarefied in Northeast Philly, where you were born and raised, you sly little fraudster, you.”
“Am I supposed to be impressed with your research?”
“I grew up only a few miles west of you, actually. Abington.”
“The suburbs,” said Reginald, with a slight sneer. “Poor little rich boy.”
“Not me. The part I grew up in was as far from sunshine and roses as you can get. At root we’re pretty similar, kids who went to law school because there was nothing else for us to do and who are now just trying to work our schemes without getting pissed on.” I leaned close enough to make him draw back slightly. “And you’re pissing on my head, Reginald.”
“I don’t know what you’re referring to.”
“Of course you do, you little guttersnipe. It’s a dangerous game you’re playing, trying to use the cops to thin the competition. See, I know your type; I am your type. And you wouldn
’t be here if you weren’t after something bigger than a sycophantic position in this horrid old house. My guess is you’re making a long play for the whole ball of Devereaux wax.”
It was just a guess, the flimsiest of feints, but the way he held his head perfectly still, the way his eyes blinked and his lips hardened, told me that I had hit on something. Maybe not everything, but something, and that was opening enough.
“Good for you. I admire ambition in a man, and no one deserves to have her fortune stripped from her withered hands more than that old bag. And who better to take care of it than her dutiful lawyer. But if I get one more drop of your piss on my head, Reginald, then you’re through here.”
“You don’t have what it takes to interfere.”
“Maybe I’ll take your play for my play, you little pissant. Oh, you may coo in her ear, but I know enough to know that cooing doesn’t plant her turnips. If you were able to satisfy Connie the way she dreams of being satisfied, then she wouldn’t need Heywood, and she wouldn’t be coming on to me like a freight train. So far I’ve demurred as politely as a schoolboy—I prefer my meat a bit more undercooked—but have no doubt that if I put my mind to it, I could overcome the revulsion and crank into her like Paul Bunyan’s big blue ox. I’ll screw her upside and down, downside and up, night and day and fast and slow and hard and true, until her tears are flowing. And in the midst of all that raw rough stuff she so much loves, I’ll whisper sweet nothings into her ear about trusts and estates and powers of attorney, and the next thing you know I’ll be standing at the doorway in pin-striped Dior with a blue Lanvin tie, listed as the executor on all her estate documents, and you’ll be back to trolling for fender benders on Roosevelt Boulevard to pay your rent. Are we clear?”
“Yes, we are clear,” he said through clenched white teeth after a long moment during which he let the truth of it soak into his skin. His accent was no longer tinged with Brit, but pure Philadelphia and flush with hate.
“Now give me your Lanvin.”
“My what?”
“Give me your tie. We’re swapping,” I said as I began to untie my own. “I want to be ready when the call comes. You can have this.”
“I don’t want that.”
“Tough,” I said. “You’ll wear it and you’ll like it.”
I pulled the tie from beneath my collar with a brisk yank and held it out to him.
Reginald stared at it like it was a dead possum hanging from my hand. He looked back up at my face and leaned away as if I were indeed a strange and fantabulous creature, huge and blue and horned, and ready to chew off his face.
“You’re going to keep your mouth shut and your eyes open,” I said, “and you’re going to let me know anything that might interest me. Especially if it involves the Congressman or that murder investigation. Do you understand?”
“Yes,” he said.
“Yes, Babe the Blue Ox, sir.”
“Yes, Babe the Blue Ox, sir,” he said.
“Now give me the fucking tie.”
First slowly, and then with sudden angry jerks, each spasm a perfect metaphor for exactly what he was, Reginald loosened his Lanvin.
CHAPTER 26
PARTY HAT
Ever get the certainty that you are missing something? You pat your pocket for your wallet, for your phone. Everything is where it should be, but you still feel the gap, the nagging sensation of incompleteness that gnaws at the soul like an itch.
I was scratching my neck when it came to me.
“So nice, and certainly unexpected, to see you again, Victor,” said Timothy in the atrium at Boyds. “I must say, your diplomatic bag does you more than justice. It makes you seem almost—how should I put it?—diplomatic. And that tie, a Lanvin, is it not?”
“So it is, Timothy.”
“Have you been shopping without me?”
“Let’s say I acquisitioned it on my own.”
“Well done, Victor. Things are looking up for you, stylewise at least. So, what are we after today? A scarf perhaps? A few perfect pieces of Brioni hosiery? Or have you finally come to your senses and decided to cast away that shapeless navy-blue tent in favor of a suit more becoming?”
“Becoming what, Timothy?”
“Becoming a man of import, Victor. A man to be reckoned with.”
“And that depends on the suit?”
“What else would it depend on?”
“Character? Intellect?”
“Are we here to joke, Victor, is that it? Are we here to clown around? Because if so, then your current suit is more than adequate—one could even say, perfect. Now, we don’t normally carry red foam noses in stock, but I could order one just for you.”
“Armani?”
“Party City.”
“Well, that might have to wait, and so will the suit. What I’m looking for now, Timothy, is a hat. Something with a snappy brim. Something like a fedora.”
“Does that mean you want a fedora?”
“I’m not sure.”
“Yes, well, I’ve grown accustomed to that with you, Victor. Tell me, why this sudden and cracked impulse to buy a hat?”
“I’ve found myself in a new line of work, and I have some strange urge to dress the part. The formal shoes are unusable at the moment, fortunately, but the bag is perfect. Still, I feel like I’m missing something. My new line is the realm of politics, where I meet in old-style steak houses and drink hard liquor laced with absinthe. The kind of line where I slip through the shadows and say things like ‘Hello, friend, do you by chance have a minute for a few words off the record?’ ”
“Oh, I see. It’s like that, is it?”
“Yes, it’s like that.”
“Politics is a dirty game, Victor.”
“Dirtier than selling rags at Boyds?”
“No. Now I could sell you a fedora, yes, in all manner of color, made of all manner of material. But with the normal fedora’s wide flat brim you would look like a hood from the 1930s, hardly the image you should be conveying.”
“It sounds about right to me.”
“But it has no sense of irony, Victor, and politics without irony is insufferable.”
“And politics with irony?”
“The same, alas. With headgear, Victor, you must choose carefully. Nothing says as much about a man’s life goals as a hat. A man in a beret wants to be Camus. A man in a baseball cap wants still to be a child. Neither can be taken seriously. So tell me, Victor, what is it you want to be in this world?”
The third and most difficult of Timothy’s questions. What did I want to be? Gangster, ironist, existentialist? Lawyer, bagman, thief? I was so busy playing the role that had landed on my head I had lost my own sense of direction.
“I . . . I don’t know, Timothy.”
“Isn’t it time to find out? But until you do, let’s maybe go with something that fits what you truly are now, something young and sharp, with a limp sense of humor. How about a trilby?”
“Isn’t he the senior senator from Rhode Island?”
“Learn your terms, Victor. A trilby is a fedora with a narrow brim and low crown. I happen to have one in a gorgeous rabbit-hair felt with a gray band, which would fit your face perfectly. And trust me, that is not an easy thing to find, considering your face. But you can’t just get the hat, Victor.”
“No?”
“Oh, no. Alone the hat would look like a peacock feather taped onto a chicken. Do you perhaps have a raincoat?”
“It’s not raining.”
“It doesn’t matter.”
“I like umbrellas.”
“We sell them, too, but this has nothing to do with the weather. Think of something tan and fitted with a belt rakishly tied in the back. With your bag and a jaunty trilby and a coat such as that, Victor, you will be a specimen to be reckoned with, I promise you that.”
<
br /> “A specimen? Like a virus on a slide under a microscope?”
“It is politics, isn’t it?”
“That it is.”
“And how will you be paying?”
“American Express,” I said.
I was wearing the coat and the hat when I returned to my office to find Maud sitting in my waiting room, legs crossed, arms crossed, smoke rising like a thin blade from her cigarette. It felt, in its strange way, as if the hat and belted raincoat had somehow summoned a member of the Brotherhood. And was that an expression of amusement on her face at my new look?
My secretary, Ellie, a sign on her desk stating THANK YOU FOR NOT SMOKING, lifted her hands in helplessness.
“There’s no smoking in the office,” I said.
“With that getup?” said Maud.
I tossed the hat onto the top of a file cabinet, where it spun for a hopeful turn before skidding off the metal onto the floor.
When we were situated in my office proper—me behind my desk and Maud, still smoldering, in a client chair—I leaned back and waited. She was a hard mark, that Maud, her eyes squinted to hide her impatience. She was one of those women so quick and competent that she was continually furious to be required to slow down for the rest of us. Just by looking, you could see the strength of her bones, all flats and angles, a bizarre yet sturdy geometric figure. She scared me, but I kept a level expression to keep from letting on.
“What are the rules?” she said, finally.
“Are we talking chess?” I said.
“This conversation.”
“A lawyer’s office is a little like a confessional in Vegas. What you say here stays here.”
“Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned.”
“I don’t doubt it.”
She looked around for an ashtray that wasn’t there and then squeezed the cigarette to death with her fingertips before placing the corpse in her purse. “I need your help.”
“You need the help of a fool with a bag?”
“A little harsh, that, I admit.”
“Maybe accurate, too.”
“That goes without saying.”
“You’re forgiven.”
Bagmen (A Victor Carl Novel) Page 15
