by Ross Thomas
“You know where he lives?”
“Laffter? I know where he hangs out. You like steak?”
She shrugged. “I’ll eat it. Where d’you have in mind?”
“The Press Club.”
“When?”
“Around eight.”
“What’ll we do till then?”
Dill grinned. “We can go try out your bed.”
She returned his grin. “You’d have to take off your pants again.”
“I can manage that.”
They didn’t make it to the Press Club that Saturday night until 8:35 because Dill decided he wanted to stop by his hotel to change his shirt and see if there were any messages. There was one in his box to call Senator Ramirez in Tucumcari, but when Dill called all he got was the answering machine’s polite bilingual apology.
The temperature had dropped to 92 degrees when they entered the Press Club, Dill in a fresh white shirt and the blue funeral suit, and Anna Maude Singe in a sleeveless yellow dress that he thought was linen, but which she said was some kind of wrinkle-resistant synthetic.
He rang the Press Club bell. Inside, Levides the Greek watched them approach the L-shaped bar. There were two spaces open at the small end of the L and Levides jerked his head toward them. When they were settled onto the stools, Levides said to Anna Maude Singe: “You used to come in here sometimes with AP Geary, didn’t you?”
“As opposed to?”
“UPI Geary.”
“I don’t know UPI Geary.”
“He’s a slob, too. Singe, isn’t it?”
“Anna Maude.”
“Right.” Levides nodded at Dill, but kept his eyes on Singe. “You’re not doing a whole hell of a lot better.”
“He’s all I could scrape up,” she said.
Levides turned to Dill. “Hell of a funeral, I hear. One guy gets killed. A thousand cops standing around and somebody shoots some poor sap and nobody sees anything. I started to come. I wish I had now.”
“Scotch,” Dill said.
“What about you?” Levides said to Singe.
“White wine.”
After he served Singe her wine and Dill his Scotch and water, Levides said, “You see the paper?”
“Tomorrow’s?” Dill said.
Levides nodded, reached underneath the bar, and came up with an early edition of the Sunday Tribune folded to page three. “Chuckles claims your sister got rich.”
It was a two-column bylined sidebar tucked beneath the three-column story that reported the murder at the cemetery. The two-column headline read:
POLICE PROBE SLAIN
DETECTIVE’S ASSETS
The story was written in what Dill always thought of as the Tribune’s patented dry-as-dust style, which it used to recount rape, murder, child molestation, treason, Democratic sweeps, and other assorted calamities that would be read over the family breakfast table. The story contained nothing Dill didn’t already know. He himself had been quoted by Laffter in the final paragraph as having no comment.
Dill passed the newspaper to Singe and asked Levides, “Is Laffter here yet?”
“He’s back in his corner, drunk as a bear, and spooning up his chili and whatever.”
“Ask Harry the Waiter if he can get us a table next to him.”
As he considered Dill’s request, Levides used a knuckle to brush his mustache thoughtfully. “Why the hell not?” he said finally and went in search of Harry the Waiter.
It took Singe only another thirty seconds to finish the story. She put the newspaper back on the bar and said to Dill, “Nothing new in any of that; nothing even faintly libelous. I think I counted five uses of ‘alleged.’ Everything except her death is alleged. They come right out and admit she’s dead.”
“I noticed,” Dill said and drank some more of his Scotch. “I’m going to get nasty with the old guy.”
“Laffter?”
He nodded.
“Nastier than you were with Harold this afternoon?”
Again, Dill nodded.
“This I’ve got to see.”
“I want your cold approval.”
“Cold, clipped, and lawyerly.”
“Right. And no matter what I say, don’t look surprised.”
“Okay.” She sipped her wine and then examined him curiously. “Where’d you learn to do this?”
“Do what?”
Before Singe could reply, Levides returned to the small end of the bar. “Harry the Waiter says he can put you next to Chuckles in about five minutes. Okay?”
“Fine.”
“He wants to know what you wanta eat.”
Dill looked at Anna Maude Singe and asked, “Filet, baked potato, and salad?”
She nodded. “One rare.”
“And one medium rare.”
Levides nodded and went away again. And again Anna Maude Singe turned to Dill and asked, “Where’d you learn to do what you did to Harold this afternoon?”
“I don’t know,” Dill said. “I think I’ve always been that way.”
“But it is an act, isn’t it?”
“Sure,” Dill said, “it’s an act,” and wondered if it really was.
CHAPTER 25
The old man had spilled some chili-mac on his yellowing pongee shirt. He was trying to mop it off with the napkin he had dipped into his water glass when Dill and Singe sat down next to him. Laffter looked up at them and then went back to work on the chili stain. The padded bench that ran along the wall ended in the corner where the old man sat. Singe also sat on the bench, Dill in a chair across the table from her. Without looking up at Dill, the old man said, “Like my story?”
“I think I counted alleged thirteen times.”
“I used it four times, but some shit on the desk stuck in another one.” He looked up then. “What’s on your mind?”
“You want a drink?”
“If you’re buying, sure.” He nodded at Anna Maude Singe. “Who’s she?”
“My lawyer,” Dill said. “Miss Singe, Mr. Laffter, who some call Chuckles.”
Singe turned her head and nodded at Laffter coolly. “Do you chuckle a lot, Mr. Laffter?”
“Hardly at all,” the old man said.
Harry the Waiter appeared at Dill’s table with napkins and silver. As he laid them out, he asked if Dill and Singe would like fresh drinks. Dill told him they’d stick with the ones they’d brought from the bar, but added, “You can bring Chuckles a drink.”
“The old goat’s had enough,” Harry the Waiter said.
“I’ll have a cognac, old blackamoor buddy,” Laffter said. “A double.”
Harry the Waiter inspected him. “Spilled chili on your shirt, huh? Well, shoot, you only been wearing it four days now. Could’ve got another two days out of it at least, if you hadn’t spilled stuff on it.”
“Step and fetch the drink, waiter,” the old man said, his voice loud enough to make heads turn.
“I got a good mind to eighty-six you right here and now,” Harry the Waiter said.
The old man glared up at him. “A good mind? You?” He shook his head in well-feigned disbelief.
“Old broken-down reporter,” Harry the Waiter said, and clucked sympathetically. “No sadder sight in the world. Used up. Worn out. Never was. Half drunk most of the time.” He turned to Dill. “You sure you wanta buy this old fool a drink?”
“I’m sure,” Dill said.
Harry the Waiter shook his head and turned away. As he moved off, the old man spoke in a loud voice of mock apology: “Misses the jungle, you know.” He grinned without mirth at Dill. “What d’you think a double cognac’ll buy you?”
“I need to find out who wanted that story about my sister printed.” Dill smiled, but it was a cold and even heartless smile just as he had intended it to be. “That’s one,” he said. “Two, I need to find out who leaked it to you.”
“Do you now?” the old man said.
“And three, if you don’t tell me, then I’ll make you wish to hell you had.”
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The old man snorted. “What d’you think you can do to me, Dill? I’m seventy-three fucking years old. It’s all been done to me already. You gonna beat the shit out of me? One knock and I’m dead and you wanta know what my last words would be? ‘Thanks very much,’ that’s what. Get me fired? I’d move to Florida and fry in the sun like I shoulda done five years back. You can’t make me wish I’d done one goddamn thing.”
Dill smiled his smile again. “My sister had an insurance policy, Chuckles. I’m the sole beneficiary. The amount she left is a quarter of a million dollars. Are you indigent?”
Laffter’s washed-out blue eyes turned suspicious. “What d’you mean, indigent?”
“Are you without funds? Broke? Busted? Flat? Tapped out?”
The old man shrugged. “I got a few bucks.”
“Good. Then you can afford a lawyer.”
“For what?”
“You’ll need him when I sue you for libel. Not the Tribune. Just you. I know my sister wasn’t on the take, Chuckles, but your story says she was. I don’t think it’ll be too hard to prove malice—do you, Miss Singe?”
“I think you’ve got an excellent case,” Singe said.
“And how much will two hundred and fifty thousand dollars buy in legal services?” Dill asked her.
Singe smiled. “Years. Simply years.”
“Now if I sue you, Chuckles, do you think the Tribune’s going to pick up your legal fees?”
“You haven’t got a case,” the old man said with a sneer. “You don’t know anything about libel, either one of you. I know more about libel than both of you put together. They’ll laugh you outa court.”
“Then we’ll appeal,” Anna Maude Singe said with another smile.
“Appeals cost money,” Dill said. “I’ve got two hundred and fifty thousand to spend, Chuckles. How much’ve you got?”
“You got shit,” the old man said, as Harry the Waiter appeared and put a balloon glass of cognac in front of him.
“Who’s got shit?” Harry the Waiter said.
“This fuck says he’s gonna sue me for libel.”
Harry the Waiter grinned at Dill. “You need a witness? You need somebody to stand up in court and say how nasty this old fool is? You do, I’m your man.”
“Go away,” Laffter said.
Harry the Waiter went away, grinning. Laffter watched him go. He remembered his cognac then, picked it up, and drank. When he put it down he smacked his lips and lit one of his Pall Malls.
“There was no libel in that story,” he told Dill. “You think I don’t know when I’m skirting the edge?”
Dill shrugged and looked at Singe. “Libel trials can be long drawn-out affairs, can’t they?”
“They can go on forever,” she said.
Dill looked back at Laffter. “You know what old man Hartshorne’ll do when I sue? He’ll hang you out to dry, Chuckles, especially if the Tribune isn’t a defendant. He won’t even remember your name. He might even fire you, but that won’t stop the suit. I’ve got both the money and the time. I don’t think you’ve got enough of either.”
Laffter finished his cognac in a gulp. “Blackmail,” he said.
“Justice,” Dill said.
“I didn’t say she was on the take.”
“You implied it. You told me you wrote another story about her once before, a feature, but they didn’t print it. It’ll be interesting to find out why.”
“They killed it, that’s all.”
“But why?” Anna Maude Singe asked. “Did they kill it—if they did—because it was inaccurate, malicious, unfair—libelous? What?”
“It was a fucking feature, lady, that’s all. It was cute, if anything. You can’t sue for cute.”
“Today’s story wasn’t cute, Chuckles,” Dill said.
The old man stared at Dill for long moments. Finally, when he sighed and said, “You really would, wouldn’t you?” Dill knew he had won and almost wished he hadn’t.
“Count on it.”
“Five years ago I’d’ve told you to go fuck yourself.”
“Five years ago you were only sixty-eight.”
“So what d’you want?”
“Who leaked you the stuff on my sister’s finances?”
“Leaked?” Laffter said. “How do you know it was a leak? I got taps down there I turn on and off like a faucet. You know how long I’ve been on police?—fifty years, that’s how long. Think about it. Fifty years—except during the war. I’ve seen rookies come on the force, grow old, and retire. Christ, I’ve even seen rookies have kids who’re damn near ready for retirement themselves. I’m a fuckin’ institution down there, Dill. Leaks!” He almost spat out the last word.
“Who’d you get it from, Chuckles?” Dill said.
The old man sighed again, picked up his empty glass, and drained the last few drops. “The chief,” he said in a resigned voice.
“You mean the chief of police—Rinkler?”
“The chief of detectives, asshole. Strucker.”
“Why?”
“Why?” the old man said, his tone incredulous. “Did you ever ask somebody why they told you something? Is that how you used to do it for UP, Dill? Somebody out at the statehouse’d let something drop and you’d say, ‘My goodness, why are you telling me all this?’ Is that how you used to work it, fella?”
“No.”
“Then don’t ask me why.”
“What’d he say to you?”
“Strucker? He said, You might find this interesting. He reeled it off and I wrote it down. And sat on it—until today when the word came down and they said, Let’s go with that Felicity Dill stuff you’ve got. It was a story, that’s all—news—and I wrote it straight as a string because that’s how I do it. And there wasn’t one word of libel in it. You know it and I know it.”
“The word came down from where—old man Hartshorne?” Dill asked.
“I don’t know,” Laffter said. “Either him or junior. What the fuck difference does it make?” He paused and then said, “That’s it! That’s all, by God!” He shoved the table away and rose. “You still wanta sue, Dill, well, you just go ahead and goddamn well sue.
Laffter started around the table, but stopped. His pale-blue eyes bulged and a dark-red flush spread across his face and it twisted itself into pure pain. He clapped his right hand to his chest and bent forward. He began to sag then and tried to support himself on the table with his left arm and hand, but they refused to cooperate. He crumpled and would have fallen if Harry the Waiter hadn’t rushed over, caught him, and lowered him gently to the floor.
Harry the Waiter looked up at Dill. “Tell the Greek to call the paramedics for the old fool,” he said.
“I’ll do it,” Anna Maude Singe said. She rose and hurried toward the bar.
“You ain’t gonna die on me, old man,” murmured Harry the Waiter, as he ripped off Laffter’s greasy gray tie. “You ain’t gonna die in my place.”
Harry the Waiter shook the old man’s shoulder and yelled, “You all right?” at him. There was no response, but he seemed to expect none. He put his left hand under the old man’s neck, lifted up, and pushed down on the now sweaty forehead with his right hand. The old man’s mouth came open. Harry the Waiter bent to listen and then shook his head, almost in disgust.
“I’m gonna have to kiss you on the mouth again, old man,” Harry the Waiter muttered. He kept his left hand under Laffter’s neck, still lifting it up, and with his right hand pinched Laffter’s nostrils until they closed. Harry the Waiter took a deep breath, opened his own mouth as wide as it would go, placed it over the old man’s mouth, and blew into it. Dill could see the old man’s chest rise. Harry the Waiter removed his mouth, checked to see if the old man’s chest was falling, and seeing that it wasn’t, blew four full quick breaths into Laffter’s mouth. This time the old man’s chest rose, fell, and then stopped.
Harry the Waiter got to his knees and checked the carotid artery in Laffter’s neck next to the voice box. “G
oddamn you, old man,” he said. He placed the heel of his left hand an inch or so down from the tip of the sternum at the xiphoid, interlocked the fingers of his hands, leaned over Laffter, and pressed down. The old man’s chest seemed to sink two inches. Harry the Waiter rocked back, came forward, and repeated the process. He repeated it fifteen times and then bent down quickly and blew twice into the old man’s mouth.
A woman’s voice behind Dill said, “Isn’t that disgusting?” He looked around and saw that a small crowd of curious diners had gathered.
Harry the Waiter looked up at Dill. “Can you blow in him?”
“Sure,” Dill said and knelt beside Laffter. “Just tell me when.”
“When I hit five again,” Harry the Waiter said and began counting his compressions aloud. When the waiter reached five, Dill inhaled deeply, covered the old man’s mouth with his own, and blew.
“Again,” Harry the Waiter said.
Dill inhaled and blew again. The old man’s mouth tasted of stale tobacco smoke and cognac. And probably Polident, Dill thought as he forced himself not to gag.
“Again on five,” Harry the Waiter said.
“Right,” Dill said.
After the waiter again made a fifth cardiac compression, Dill again blew breath twice down into the old man’s lungs. They were both still at it a few minutes later when the fire-department paramedics arrived and took over. The paramedics put Laffter on oxygen, lifted him onto a gurney, and rolled him toward the front of the club. Dill and Harry the Waiter went with them. The onlookers went back to their drinks and dinners.
“He gonna make it?” Harry the Waiter asked one of the paramedics.
“Yeah, I think so. You hit him pretty good with your CPR again, Harry. Thanks.”
When the paramedics were gone, Dill asked Harry the Waiter, “You did CPR on him before?”
“Twice.”
“Jesus.”
“I told the old fool time and again he ain’t gonna die here in my place. He’s gonna die at home in bed all alone. That’s how and where he’s gonna die. Not here in my place. You really say you were gonna sue him?”
Dill nodded.
Harry the Waiter shook his head and grinned. “That’d set him off. That’d set him off for sure. You know who the old fool’s gonna leave all he’s got to?”
