Past Due

by William Lashner

  “You’ve been torturing yourself about this for twenty years,” I said.

  “Of course I have. It has colored everything in my life, including my political philosophy. Personal responsibility, reverence for life, harsh enforcement of the criminal code. Everything.”

  “But you weren’t responsible,” I said to the justice.

  “Excuse me?”

  “Responsible for Tommy’s death. It wasn’t you.”

  “Don’t be a fool, Mr. Carl. What do you know of my brother?”

  “Enough. I know he hired the men who beat up Tommy Greeley. But it wasn’t you who put him up to it and told him what he needed to know.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “And Tommy wasn’t murdered that night.”

  “Mr. Carl…”

  “Let’s take a walk, you and I.”

  “To where?”

  “To find a suitcase.”

  Chapter

  66

  HE STOOD BEFORE the old rehabed factory building with a sense of reverence, a sense of awe, as if it were some shrine to a long-ago battle that ended badly. He shifted his weight uneasily, twisting his head from side to side. If it weren’t for our suits, any cop walking by would have taken us for second-story men.

  “This isn’t right,” he said.

  “Sure it is.”

  “We can’t just barge in.”

  “Sure we can.”

  “Mr. Carl, she is my wife.”

  “That’s right. Your wife. That’s what makes this perfectly legal.”

  He looked at the security box at the front door. “I don’t know the code,” he said, a note of relief in his voice. “If she doesn’t answer we should go.”

  I tapped the numbers into the box: 53351. The front door clicked open.

  “How did you—”

  “Come on,” I said, standing in the doorway, waiting for the justice to go through.

  After he did, I turned around and scanned the street. I spied whom I was looking for standing in the doorway of a clothing store, on the opposite side, a few addresses down, standing as stiff as a mannequin with his dashing haberdashery. Skink. Our eyes met for a second, I gave him a quick nod, and then followed the justice up the threadbare stairs, one flight, two flights, to the large rusted metal door on the third floor.

  The justice stood aside as I gave it a bang.

  No answer.

  “She’s not in,” he said.

  There was a mat. I lifted it up. No key. There was a plant in the pot by the door, a large rock on the surface of the dirt. I lifted up the rock, turned it over in my hand. No hidden compartment, no key, just a rock. I lifted up the pot itself. No key. I ran my finger across the top of the door frame. No key.

  “Where does she keep it?” I said.

  “We can’t just enter her space. This isn’t right.”

  “She would have a spare so her visitors could have easy access. Where would she keep it?”

  He turned. “I’m going.”

  I grabbed his arm. “No, you’re not. Twenty years ago you stepped out of this room and a part of you was left behind. It’s time to get it back, Mr. Justice.”

  “Don’t be crude.”

  “Where is the key?”

  He looked down at my hand on his arm and then at my face, and he must have seen something there, some desperation, because he backed away slightly.

  “Something’s going on, isn’t it, Mr. Carl?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Something serious?”

  “As melanoma.”

  “Is my wife involved?”

  “Up to her neck.”

  He looked away for a moment, bobbed his head, and then stepped over to the light fixture sticking out of the wall by the door. The glass covering the bulb was on a hinge. He opened it, reached in, took out the key, handed it to me.

  Just like that we were in.

  I didn’t take a moment to gawk at the surroundings, I didn’t take a moment to look at the furnishings, the alluring pictures of Alura Straczynski on the wall, the quote from Kafka, the great bed in the middle of the floor, I didn’t take the time to wander around as if wandering through the source of some great mysterious power, I left that for the justice. Instead, I noticed the one crucial difference from my prior visit. The journals and notebooks that had before been on the great mahogany bookshelf were now arranged on the floor in great listing stacks, as if they were being inventoried, rearranged, readied for a move. And in one corner, still flat and folded, were heavy cardboard book boxes all in a pile.

  So, someone was taking a trip. All the more reason to make my search, starting with the closets.

  I searched through the clothes, the art and office supplies, the high shelves with their hat boxes, the low shelves with their shoes. As I was searching, the justice was running his hand over the tilting stacks of journals, as if amazed at the sheer amount of words, words, words. The hell with that, I was looking for something more substantial. I went through the drawers, the chests, I wasn’t dainty about it either, no sir. Let’s just say the lingerie was flying.

  I wasn’t finding it, but it was here, it had to be here. For Derek had been told by Benny Straczynski about a suitcase, and if Benny didn’t learn about it from his brother then he must have learned about it from someone else, someone else who knew about the suitcase and Tommy’s plans, perhaps the someone who was planning to run off with him and all that money. Maybe someone who was planning to run off and changed her mind and used her brother-in-law to get back what she had planned to run away with, the notebooks, the money, not to mention the photographs. Funny how it all came back to the photographs.

  From the shelves of a linen closet I pulled down towels, sheets, cartons of cosmetics. I pulled books off the shelves to see what was behind. I kicked at walls to look for hidden spaces. I stood on a chair, jumped up to grab a rafter, pulled myself up to see what might be hidden in the overhead tangle of pipes and wires and wood. I was trying too hard, I was being too clever.

  I found it under the bed.

  An old, green, hard-sided Samsonite. As soon as I hoisted it onto the center of the mattress I knew something was wrong. It was light, way too light.

  “Is that the suitcase you were talking about?” said the justice as he held one of the journals open in his hand.

  “Who pays the rent on this place?”

  “My wife.”

  “With what money?”

  “After the incident with Tommy, she refused to take any money from me for the studio. She said she had an inheritance from her mother. She said she would provide for her own artistic endeavors. Something about Virginia Woolf.”

  “That’s why it’s so light.”

  “What is that suitcase? Who is it from?”

  “It was the suitcase Tommy Greeley was carrying the night he disappeared.”

  I didn’t think it was possible for the justice to grow any paler, but he did, he blanched, like a cauliflower in boiling water. But I’ll give him this, Justice Straczynski, he didn’t ask how it got there. The poor son of a bitch was quick enough to figure it out on his own.

  I tried to open the suitcase, but it was locked. I went through smaller drawers looking for a key. Nothing. I didn’t want to have to break the lock, I wanted it to look pristine, unchanged from that fateful night. I made a quick return to the closets, I pulled down the hat boxes, checked between and beneath the pillows.

  I was making such a racket with my search that we didn’t hear the front door opening, the footsteps upon the stairs, we didn’t noticed the figure standing in the open doorway. Didn’t notice her at all, until Alura Straczynski, holding her great swath of keys out in front of her, said,

  “Looking for these?”

  Chapter

  67

  THE JUSTICE, HUNCHED over one of the journals, stared at his wife with the same exotic expression I had spied when I first visited his chambers, the admixture of passion and fascination, of fear and disgu
st and abject love, but there was something else, something that hadn’t been there before but which came through with stunning purity: hate. With everything else now, there was hate on his face, and the strength of that emotion seemed to startle Alura Straczynski, though just for a moment, before she gained again her brilliant self-possession.

  “What are you reading, dear? Anything interesting?”

  “Not really,” he said, closing the journal in his hand.

  “Then put it down.”

  The justice trembled a bit, as if trying to gain control of his very muscles, and glanced my way before he carefully placed the journal atop one of the piles.

  “Good,” she said. “Now, tell me, why have you broken into my studio.”

  “I was just—”

  “This is my private place, as private as my soul. You have no business meddling here. I made that clear many years ago.”

  The justice gestured to the suitcase on the bed. “Mr. Carl says this is Tommy Greeley’s suitcase. Is he correct?”

  “Our Mr. Carl is quite a pain in the ass, don’t you think so, Jackson? I told you we had to watch out for him.”

  “How did you get Tommy’s suitcase?”

  “That is none of your business.”

  “What did you do, Alura?”

  Her anger took control of her for a moment, anger at being forced to justify anything in her life, but then her gaze cast about the room and she took in the situation, my presence, the closets emptied, the clothes scattered about, her husband asking questions that he had never dared ask before. She stepped forward toward her husband, stepped forward until she was standing before him, only a pile of journals between them, standing before him like a penitent, and then she bowed her head so it touched his chest.

  “Long ago I decided to stay with you, my love,” she said.

  There was a moment when it appeared he was going to reach out his arms and embrace her, accept her, tell her all was right. It was what he had always done, what he was about to do, but then something seized him, perhaps the anger, perhaps some sickness at the heart. He stepped back, away from her, leaving her standing there, head bowed, in the middle of the room, alone.

  “What did you do?” he said softly.

  “Tommy was about to be indicted. He was running away. There was a boat. He had a plan. He wanted me to meet him at the dock and leave with him.”

  “And you couldn’t just have told him no.”

  “He was leaving. There were things he had possession of with which I couldn’t let him leave.”

  “And so you brought in my brother.”

  “No, Jackson, dear. You brought in your brother. But when he came to me, angry as a beast over what he considered my betrayal of his precious brother, I told him the truth.”

  “The truth?”

  “Yes, Jackson. You must believe. The truth. That I loved you. That I couldn’t live without you. That I was staying, that it was over between Tommy and myself. But there were some precious things of mine that Tommy still possessed. They would be in a suitcase. And I told him where Tommy and his precious suitcase would be found.”

  “You let me think it was me. All this time.”

  “I let you think what you wanted to think. You wanted to bear the guilt, so be it. If it was to be borne, you were better able to handle the burden.”

  “You’re a witch.”

  “Why such a frown, Jackson. I chose you. You should be grateful.”

  “You were all I ever wanted.”

  “I know, dear.”

  “And you’re a witch,” he said, and then he seemed to totter. He reached out his arm, braced himself on the writing desk, clutched his gut. The whole of his marriage was coming clear to him in a way I would never understand and it was enough to send his stomach reeling.

  She rushed to him, reached out for him, pulled him close. “Jackson,” she said as she held him. “Oh, Jackson, my darling, Jackson.”

  I stepped over to the charming scene and took hold of the keys she still held in her hand. She gave me a bitter glance before she released her grip. I went through them quickly and found the smallest ones. It only took me three tries to fit one neatly into the suitcase’s lock. With a quick click I opened it, unlatched the latches, pulled up the top.

  A few old shirts, old socks, a yellowed undershirt thrown into the suitcase with haste, and then, within the fabric, three bundles of cash. The bills were old, the denominations varied, the bills like the shirts packed up in haste. I went through them quickly. Twenty, thirty thousand maybe. I took the bundles out of the suitcase and showed them to her.

  “Those are mine,” she said, staring at me even as she clutched at her husband. “Put them back.”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “How dare you?”

  “I dare. How much was there when you first opened it up. Enough to pay for this room of your own for twenty years, along with the drinks, the clothes, the affairs, all the former lovers you continued to support. Lovers like Curtis Lobban.”

  “Remember what I said about being too clever, Victor? Give me the money.”

  “You stole enough,” I said as I slipped the bills into my jacket pocket, along with the suitcase key.

  She let go of her husband. “So now you’re taking your cut, is that it?”

  “Yes,” I said. “That’s it. But it wasn’t the money you were really after that night, was it? That was just a lucky pull. You were looking for something else. Something that’s been gone since then. Until now. The photographs.”

  “Yes.”

  “And your damn notebooks.”

  “You found them?”

  “That’s right,” I said.

  “You have my notebooks?”

  “Yes,” I said, but when I said it I noticed something muted in her reaction. Before, whenever she mentioned her missing notebooks her eyes had lit with excitement, and the need to seduce them from me. Now the excitement had been dimmed, the need weakened, as if she already knew that I had the notebooks, as if she already knew how she was going to get them.

  “Your notebooks?” said Jackson Straczynski, standing straighter now. “You had my brother kill Tommy for the notebooks?”

  “I foolishly gave some to Tommy for safekeeping. I didn’t want you to find them. But then I realized without them there was a gap.”

  “They’re just words.”

  “They are my life’s work, Jackson. Don’t minimize what you don’t understand.”

  “So you used my brother to fill the gap.”

  “He wasn’t supposed to kill him,” she said.

  “All for you precious notebooks.”

  “They are my life,” she said. “You know that.”

  “Yes,” he said. “I do.”

  He traced his fingers gently over the cover of one of the journals perched high on a pile. “Your journals,” he said as he caressed another, gently touching the skin of the cover as one would touch a lover, brushing it with the tips of his fingers, stroking it with the softest touch. “Your precious journals.”

  And then he gave the pile a light shove.

  The stack teetered for a moment, teetered, and then collapsed, the notebooks falling one upon another, some skidding across the floor, splayed open.

  Alura Straczynski gasped, as if it was she who had been pushed to the floor.

  He pushed another pile to the floor, and then a third.

  “What are you doing?” she said.

  He turned to stare at her as he gave another pile a quick kick, sending a stack of books sliding and then collapsing onto the floor, the volumes spreading open in the air, their pages flapping from the force. The sight of the books sprawling open was almost obscene.

  Alura Straczynski rushed to her husband and called out “Bastard,” as she shoved him away from the journals. She fell to her knees, picking up the notebooks, her notebooks, and placing them carefully in her arms. She picked up as many as she could possibly hold and clutched them to her chest, rocking th
em almost as if she were easing their pain.

  “They’re a curse,” he said.

  “They’re my life’s purpose,” she replied, without looking at him.

  “They should be burned.”

  “Touch them again and I’ll kill you,” she said, her lack of affect positively chilling.

  “Alura?”

  “Don’t,” she said.

  “Alura.”

  “Shut up,” she said.

  And he did, and they stayed there for a moment in the pathetic tableau, she mothering her journals as if they were a child, turning her back on the husband who loved her far too foolishly and far too well. And he, trying to explain himself to a woman who cared not a whit for anything but the jottings of an inner life that was warped by the very process of its saving. The unexamined life might not be worth living, but the examined life is pure murder.

  “All right,” I said, finally, “are you guys through with your marital drama here, because any more and, frankly, I’m going to puke all over the bed.”

  The justice stared at me for a moment and then at his wife, still kneeling with her journals, still holding them tight to her chest. Then he looked around at the whole of the studio, the scattered books, the photographs of his wife taken by her lover, the mess of clothes I had thrown about in my search, the great bed sitting like a lurid whale in the middle of the space, and on top of the bed, Tommy Greeley’s suitcase. This is my private place, as private as my soul, she had said. You have no business meddling here. She was wrong about him having no business there, but it seemed clear, as he looked around, that he couldn’t bear to stay there any longer.

  “Don’t worry, Mr. Carl,” he said, his face twisted with disgust. “I am finished here.”

  And then he walked out of the studio, passing by his wife as if she were made of stone, slamming the door closed behind him, the rusted metal banging shut with the solid echo of a cell door.

  Alura Straczynski seemed to slump at the sound, and then, without looking my way, started placing her notebooks back in their stacks, checking each one for the date, sorting and arranging. I looked again at the pile of folded book cartons in the corner.