“Forget it,” I said. “Give him back to me.”
“Certainly, sir,” she said.
She got up. I got up. She went in back. The vet came out, carrying Mario.
“I want my garbage bag back too,” I said.
They were kind enough to return my garbage bag. I set it on the floor and shoved Mario back in. Then I hefted him on my shoulder again and left. I had seen some construction on the way, and I decided that the thing to do was put the corpse in a Dumpster. Sentiment is one thing, but $340 and a crematorium seemed too unrational. While I was standing on the corner, waiting for the light to change, the bag broke and Mario fell out.
It was New York, and most passersby ignored me while I tied a knot in the top, then turned the bag around to stuff him back in the way he’d come out. With the reversed bag over my shoulder, I walked two blocks to the renovation site. As I approached the Dumpster, a man standing in front of the work area turned his glare on me. He knew I was going to try to steal space in his Dumpster.
I walked on past, searching. Block after block, no more Dumpsters. But I did spy a large lidded trash bin, about three feet deep, four feet high, six feet wide, outside a restaurant. I lifted the lid. It was empty. Restaurant trash is picked up daily. Perfect. Mario would not become a health hazard.
“Don’ do dat,” someone yelled from the doorway.
I had never realized before how possessive people get about their trash receptacles. I saw myself as an urban version of the Ancient Mariner, doomed to wander Metropolis, eighty-five pounds of dead dog as my personal albatross.
I set my burden down and thought. Then I hefted him back on my back and retraced my steps to the vet.
“OK,” I said to the veterinarian’s receptionist. “You win. Three hundred and forty dollars.” I put the dog down, took out my checkbook, and began to write.
“We don’t take checks,” the receptionist said.
“I’ll tell you what I’m going to do,” I said. “I’m going to write a check for three hundred and forty dollars. I’m going to slip it in your little slot here. Then I’m going to leave this dog, this dead dog, on your doorstep. What you do from there is up to you.”
Sam Bleer was in the office when I returned. Naomi was hysterical. “All my work. All my work. And you destroyed it!” she said to me.
“What are you talking about?” I said.
“Tony, come on,” Sam said. “You can’t beat an audit by stealing your own files.”
“Stealing my own files? What are you talking about?”
“Everything I’ve been working on, for over a week, with overtime—which you don’t pay, not at time and a half anyway—” Naomi said, “is missing. … Are missing? … Is missing.”
“Wait a minute,” I said. “What’s missing?”
The bulk of three years of financial records was gone. Sam and Naomi were convinced that I had stolen them. Sam started lecturing me that it would only screw me with the Feds.
“Why would I steal my own records? Why would I kill my own dog?”
“Who else would?” Sam said.
“You killed that wonderful, sweet, kind animal?” Naomi shrieked.
“I didn’t kill. I didn’t steal. Stop!” They stopped. “I came in early. I found the office a wreck. I saw that the Gunderson file was gone, part of it. I didn’t realize the financial records were gone. Mario was shot. I called the police.”
“I don’t believe it,” Sam said.
I glared at him.
“You I believe,” Sam said defensively. “I believe you didn’t steal your own records. But I don’t believe that someone else did. The IRS won’t believe it, either. It had to be you, even though I know you and believe you and it was someone else.”
“So what?” I said.
“So what?” he said. “I don’t want to tell you what. I want you to hear this from your attorney.”
So we got Gerry Yaskowitz to come over. And I went through the whole story again.
“So tell him,” Sam said.
“You can’t fix this one,” Gerry said. “You destroy records in the middle of an audit, you go to prison. You’re going to do time, Tony. You shouldn’t have done it, even though I believe you when you say you didn’t do it.”
“Now I know why Flawless wanted me to wait a day to decide. What this is,” I announced, “is political.” The assembled multitude was underwhelmed.
“Of course it is,” Gerry said.
“Don’t you see? I can cut a deal with Gunderson: I lay off him, the IRS lays off me.”
“Hey, if you’re on speaking terms with the attorney general,” Gerry said, “why bother with a little guy like me?”
“I’m not going to do it. I’m gonna bring the bastard down. Once I do that, we can prove this was political.”
“It doesn’t work like that. Just because he is guilty doesn’t mean that you are not guilty.”
“I didn’t steal my own files. I’ll get the dog back and get ballistics on the bullets, if they’re still in him. Then we can prove—”
“Nah,” Gerry said, shaking his head.
“I’m not going to let them stop me.”
Sam scratched his head. Gerry looked up to the ceiling, where the Jewish God is.
“Gerry’s right,” Sam said. “If you can cut a deal, you better cut it. I’ve never, in my whole life as an accountant, had one this bad.”
“Sam’s right,” Gerry said. “They got you by the balls.”
“Well, maybe I’ll take my chances.”
“You’re going to go to prison,” Gerry said. “As your attorney, I am telling you that as a fact. Not advice. Not opinion.”
“So I’ll do the time.”
“What’s Glenda and the kid gonna do?” Gerry said. “While you’re on the inside, who pays for the apartment? What the hell are you gonna do when you come out? You sure as hell won’t have your license anymore. What are you gonna end up with—other people’s scraps, like Miles Vandercour?”
“You leave Miles alone,” Naomi said. “Miles is perfectly good.”
“Sorry,” Gerry said, “but we’re discussing Tony here. And, Tony, the Feds already told you they want you in the pen in Atlanta, not in a country club like Allenwood. You might not come out alive.”
“Just get me some time,” I said. “Some time to clear myself. To get some leverage.”
“I can’t get you time. I can get you the weekend. I’ll wait till four thirty-one to call the IRS so they won’t get back to me till Monday. Is that the kinda time you need?”
“There’s a guy in Washington.” I handed Stanislaw Ulbrecht’s card to Gerry. “I don’t want to talk to him. You call him. Cut a deal. Money talks, everybody walks.
“I’m not a kid anymore. Once upon a time. I’m not a kid anymore. I got responsibility. … ”
“Sure, I’ll call him for you, Tony.”
“I still score the hundred grand, which means I get to pay everybody’s bill. That’s important. It’s not up to me to save the world. Just do my job. Take care of my own.”
“You’re making the right decision, Tony.”
We all read the comic book
from the comic book store,
it said you better exit laughing
because you can’t buy forever more.
The times they have changed.
I don’t know them anymore.
The leaves got stuck
on a calendar of the year of eighty-one.
Everybody decided to live forever,
but they all stopped having fun.
Nobody wants to touch the sky
on the way out the door.
Nobody’s laughing,
they don’t accept the score—
not anymore.
“Nashville” Katz, “Decades A Go Go”
(© Pussykatz Muzic, Inc., 1983)
42.
The White Rapper
It is by the goodness of God that in our country we have three unspeakably precious things: fre
edom of speech, freedom of conscience, and the prudence never to practice either of them.
Mark Twain
GLENDA TOLD ME NOT to be upset. That I had done very well. That I had made the right decision. The adult decision. She was proud of me.
I went to Joey’s apartment to think, reflect, look at my life and myself. I stayed there from early morning until ten or eleven each night for the next four days. I went home at night only to avoid having to prove to Glenda that I was spending my nights alone.
At one point, I tried to reach Des Kennel. To see if WFUX wanted to run with the story. There was no indictment, but he certainly could use the word “alleged” a lot. But he was out of town. For a week. At a Life Plan Way Full Realization seminar.
There were several anxious calls to the office. Gene Petrucchio and Syd Coberland each called twice. Uncle Vincent called. Wirtman called. Gerry Yaskowitz called late Monday, when he got back from D.C. He told Naomi to tell me everything was A-OK. I didn’t call him back until late Tuesday.
“That Stanislaw Ulbrecht is a very strange fellow,” Gerry said. “But we had a nice conversation on the ontology of English common law. How many people these days care about the nature of things?”
“So?”
“The deal. Whatta deal. Has he got a deal for you. First, as a sign of good faith, your audit has already been postponed. For ten days. Business days. In two weeks you can apply for a thirty-day postponement. Which will be granted. Then they will drop the case.”
“Who came up with that schedule?” I asked. “The reelection committee?”
“He also has in his office … It’s a nice office; lots of books. I tell you, Tony, when I retire I could retire to a room like that. So much to read. Wonderful … an internal FBI memo which makes it clear that you were only defending yourself in Faith. Just in case you should ever need such a statement.”
“Fine,” I said.
“Straightman’s case is also postponed. They are discussing a settlement. In November the settlement will be accepted. No criminal prosecution. After he releases the hundred thousand dollars to you. Ulbrecht wanted to hold that up until after the reinauguration. He thinks you tend to be volatile. I insisted that you get yours before Straightman gets his deal.
“January sometime, you go down to Washington if you want. Stanislaw—that man is very well connected—guarantees to arrange another hundred thousand dollars’ worth of contracts to go your way in fiscal ’85. … I think we did pretty good.”
“You did fine, Gerry,” I said.
“You don’t sound so happy about it,” he said.
“So?”
“You got money, you got your health, plus you got a great attorney. What more can anyone ask out of life?”
“Thanks, Gerry,” I said, and hung up.
I went home. Wayne was zapping aliens on his new computer. He asked me if I was ready to learn how to use it.
“Not yet,” I said.
“Oh,” he said.
“You want to go to the park? Throw a ball around?”
“Sure,” he said. “Male bonding.”
“You’re awful short for a wise-ass,” I told him.
We went to the park. It was a muggy day, and we didn’t seem that into baseball anyway.
“What’s wrong?” he asked me.
“It’s pretty complicated. I haven’t figured it out yet.”
“Is it Mario?” he asked. “I’m upset about him too.”
“It’s more than that,” I said.
“That’s what upsets me the most,” he said. “I wish we’d had a backyard to bury him in.”
“Would you like a new dog?” I asked him.
“Maybe. But not yet.”
“OK,” I said, listlessly.
“Will you snap out of it,” he said.
“Look,” I told him, “this is a lot more complicated than you can understand. I’ll try to explain it, if I have to, but basically I have to figure some things out.”
“You know what I think?” he said.
“What?”
“I think you’re sulking.”
“You’re awful small for a wise-ass,” I said, “but when you’re right, you’re right.”
Wednesday, I went into the office and went back to work. As part of my new adult, post-sulk, self, I decided to make the least pleasant call first.
Uncle Vincent wanted to know why I hadn’t come to see him. He explained that I was a “bum.”
“I apologize for it. I’ve been busy.”
“The greata man. Always too busy. You gotta the full appointment calendar.”
“I can come over now, if you want.”
“You sure a that? I’ma not taking you away from affairs of state? I figure a busy man like you, you got an appointment with President Reagan. I wouldn’t want to interfere widda that.”
“No,” I said. “Mr. Reagan and I, we settled our business. My calendar is open now.”
“Yeah, sure a you had business with President Reagan. I’ma glad you got it settled. Now you gotta time for your family.”
“So I’ll come on over now.”
“Oh, the busy man, the busy man, he findsa the time. You come if you wanna. You don’ come if you don’ wanna. I don’a care.”
I drove out to New Jersey, not really knowing why I went. Maybe it was to look at his money. Maybe I would like living in a home like his. Great trees shadowing winding streets, green grass on sloping lawns.
He wanted to talk about me having Michael’s grandson, a blood nephew. While he talked, I nodded and grunted and let my mind drift, drift transatlantic. I had a fantasy about Marie. She seemed fixed in herself as a person, though adrift in terms of job and career. The opposite of an American woman. And there was—whether I was perceiving or projecting, I didn’t know—a different attitude about the husband-wife, man-woman relationship. I saw myself going to her. Telling her about my uncle’s offer. Guaranteeing her thirty or forty thousand dollars a year, or whatever, to be a mother. To let me be the father of her child. What kind of husband and wife we would be, how long it would last, we would figure out as we went along. I would have my cake and eat it too. She would be fixed for life.
I told Vincent I would give his offer every consideration.
“Hurry up,” he said. “I don’t got much time. I’m running out of time.”
I went back to the office. I called Gene Petrucchio. He asked me to come out to Brooklyn around seven. I said I would.
Jerry Wirtman had called while I was out, to tell me to expect a call from his nephew on his wife’s side of the family, Matthew Silverstein, about business. The nephew had in fact called. He called himself Matt E. Silver and he was an A&R man at 21st Century Sounds.
“You the P.I.?” he said.
“I’m the P.I.,” I said.
“My uncle says you’re good. He’s an old guy, but sometimes he’s pretty sharp. Whyn’t you come over here and we’ll take a look at you. How’s right now? Yesterday would’ve been better.”
“Yeah, why not,” I said.
21st Century Sounds was in the Brill Building, a short walk from my place. Their offices were small, physically unimpressive, and energetic. They ushered me into the office of their president, Ron Tower. He had a potbelly and a sports jacket. He must have been close to twenty-nine. He was the elder statesman of the place. Matt E. Silver sat on the edge of the desk in baggy pants and a T-shirt with the sleeves rolled up.
“You know the White Rapper?” Tower asked.
“Of course he knows the White Rapper. Everyone knows the White Rapper,” Matt said.
“Not necessarily,” Ron said.
“I know of him,” I said.
“Of course he does. I made rock ’n’ roll history with the White Rapper. The first rap act to play CBGB’s. The biggest rap record contract in the industry. A five-record deal. Rock ’n’ roll history.”
“He’s gone missing,” Ron said.
“No gratitude,” Matt E. Silver said. “I m
ade him.”
“What’s his real name?” I asked.
“Real name? Does he even have a real name?” Matt said bitterly.
“You see,” Ron said, “the Rapper really is Matt’s creation. He’s a concept, and we got writers to write the songs and we made up a real name for him, Harold Stucker, and we copyright all the songs under that name, then we found a funny-looking guy—”
“Isidore Danielovitch,” Matt said. “Do you believe Isidore Danielovitch? This schmuck was wandering around the streets looking for a job as an actor and didn’t even have the sense to change his name. I found him.”
“ … and got him a choreographer. Then we got a couple of our black acts to work with him to teach him to rap.”
“I could do it again,” Matt said. “Let’s just find a new guy. We can do makeup. We can say he had an accident.” Suddenly he jumped up. “We could do great PR on the accident. … Visualize it. All wrapped up like the mummy man. He’s had plastic surgery. His face was ruined in the accident. Then we have a dramatic unwrapping. Live press coverage. The bandages come off. The White Rapper’s new face is revealed! Dig it—we video it, the unwrapping, then we do a rap video around it.”
Ron smiled, proud of his protégé. “You can see why we at 21st Century call Matt the Boy Hustler. What a guy!” he said.
“So you wanna forget old Izzy?” Matt said.
“As a last resort,” Ron said. “If Tony can’t find him, we’ll make a new one.”
We discussed price, and I agreed to take the case. They gave me photos, his address, the name and address of his girlfriend, the first name of a groupie he was known to be hot for, and the name of his connection. On the way out, Matt offered me the White Rapper’s latest album. “I’ll autograph it for you, personally. Hey, you want a White Rapper T-shirt?” He grabbed one from a stack. “Lemme do you a real favor,” he said. “I got T-shirts from the Porcine Porkers’ Japanese tour. They’re rare. A little piece of rock ’n’ roll history. And they’re really good, hundred-percent cotton, none of that fifty percent poly crap.”
Before I went to Brooklyn, I returned Syd Coberland’s call.
“Remember the missing pages you were looking for?” he said, a discreet reference to the unexpurgated special prosecutor’s report on Randolph Gunderson. “I got ’em.”
You Get What You Pay For (The Tony Cassella Mysteries) Page 37
