It was only nine o'clock, but Victoria was exhausted. She guessed it was from the mental anguish of what had happened in the last two days. She was glad to be back home, in her own bedroom. She put on her old flannel nightgown that she had had since before college. She paused on the way to her bed and looked at her old cheerleading photos from ninth grade. She had been the team captain. She was kneeling in front of the rally squad, her pom-poms beside her, the big white W on her sweater. She was the only one in the picture who wasn't smiling. She let her eyes roam the room. Victoria had never allowed herself any leisure time here. She had studied hard, never wanting any seams to show. She had wanted to be perfect. She tried to recapture the countless hours spent in this room, to review them like favorite moments in a scrapbook… but there were none. This was not a room full of fun memories. It was a work space.
Her mother had picked the blue and white wallpaper. It had ballerinas on it; they were twirling, arms outstretched or over their heads, frozen in perfect plies and pirouettes. She could remember lying in bed as a girl, looking at the dancers on the wall, wondering what it would be like to dance like that, to be free, whirling with abandon, no cares, no fears, no finals. She could not imagine it. Her life was deadlines and due dates. She could never pull her eyes off the finish fine. Not then, not now. She wondered where that trait had come from and what it had cost. Her parents had tried to find outside interests for her, but no matter what the activity, Victoria always found the discipline in it. She had pushed her tennis lessons all the way to the Junior Semi-finals; her cheerleading team won the State Championship. Everything she did was planned out, plotted, and delivered on.
Law had been the perfect career for a beautiful over-achiever. She had been top of her class at Dartmouth and had turned down several prestigious law firms to go into combat training on the D.A.'s staff. She had been called Tricky there, but she knew "tricky" was hardly the word to define her. A better word was "relentless." She refused to give up on a case if she thought the perp was guilty. She would pursue new angles when a confession or evidence had been thrown out. She would research and study and dig till it hurt. She would often come up with unorthodox strategies that worked. Now, at age thirty-five, it had all come crashing down because of a small, wavy-haired mobster who walked on his toes. She couldn't understand how a road so carefully paved, so meticulously chosen, could end in such disaster.
She heard the door of the small elevator close downstairs. Her father had installed the lift two years ago, after her mother had the first stroke. The elevator hummed and Victoria heard it stop upstairs. Then she heard her mother's voice outside her door.
"'ictoria…?"
"Yes, Mom."
"'an I 'ome in?"
"Sure." She got out of bed, turned on the light as her mother came in, and set the brake on the wheelchair.
"Honey, I 'ant you read 'iss," her mother slurred, and handed Victoria a sheet of paper filled with her shaky but legible handwriting.
Victoria read it out loud: "People have to attain their own destinies. Sometimes only you can know what you must do. A long life is nice… and I wish it for you because I love you. But a life full of choices forced on you by others is not worth living."
They sat looking at each other. Her mother had come to her rescue thousands of times in this room, sat patiently helping her with her homework, helping her with her life.
Victoria moved to her mother, bent over, and gave her a hug. "How did I get so lucky to have you guys as parents?"' she finally said.
"We lucky ones," her mother answered.
Somewhere in this moment the phone had rung downstairs. Victoria had not paid it any attention. Now her father was calling for her. She moved out of her room and into the hall where the phone sat on a French Provincial table.
"Hello…" she said tentatively.
"Martin Cushbury. I hope that stain came out. Should have. Citrus juice generally isn't too tough."
"Whatta you want?" she said angrily.
"You sure stuck your broom handle into a Sicilian hornets' nest, Vicky."
"I want my case folders back."
"I'm not so sure I would have flipped off Joe Rina on TV, but other than that, it was a pretty good performance. It's about time somebody gave Gil Green a tonsillectomy."
"Just send my case folders back… There's nothing in there you can use. Beyond that, I don't have anything to say to you."
"Don't be so sure. I was wondering if maybe we could get together, have a little talk about the Rina brothers."
"We're not going to get together. You're wanted by the FBI. I don't need to add harboring a fugitive, and aiding and abetting, to my list of this week's fuck-ups."
"FBI?" He said it as if he'd never heard of them.
"For a clever guy, you had one clumsy moment. You left your orange juice glass on the table. I ran the prints. When I pulled your priors out of the computer, the yellow sheet went all the way to the floor."
"I like to stay busy," he said without humor.
"No kidding. I also know that Carol Sesnick was a member of your family. For that reason, I'm going to cut you some slack… I could've agreed to meet you again, then shown up with an FBI escort."
"You can trust me, Vicky. I think, from what I've heard, we both want the same thing."
"Send my files back. The address is on the manila folder. And don't call me again." She hung up the phone and looked over and saw her father standing in the hall. He had a question mark on his face and was holding a fax from David Frankfurter.
"This was in the machine downstairs," he said, handing it to her.
She looked at the N.C.I.C. printout and the fax with Beano's picture. In the photo he had black hair and no mustache. She didn't want to talk about any of this with her parents, so she gave them both a kiss, then went back to her room and climbed into bed, pulling the covers up under her chin. But her mind would not shut down. She was thinking about Beano Bates… Who was he? Had he been close to Carol? How could Carol have been in a family of Gypsies who roamed the Midwest picking pockets? Why had she not told Victoria what was going on? Had Victoria been played for a sucker? All of this went through her mind, and then another thought struck her. She got up and moved to her desk and turned on the lamp. She looked closely at the faxed picture of Beano Bates. She tried to remember the pictures of Frank Lemay that had been taken in the hospital. She wondered if Beano Bates could be Frank Lemay. It was hard to tell. The hospital photos had shown a man who had been beaten almost beyond recognition. Still, the age was right, the hair color similar. She moved back to her bed and got under the covers again. She tried to figure out what it could mean. New questions filled her head: If Beano was Frank, then wasn't it too big a coincidence that his cousin Carol was in that parking lot to witness the beating? Did that mean Carol had been lying? Had her friend played her for a fool? Was Carol going to manufacture testimony, lie in court, because she knew Beano's life was still in danger? Had Victoria so badly misjudged the situation?
A full moon was low on the horizon and shot cold silver light through the open window. She looked at the ballerinas on the wallpaper, spinning, turning, throwing themselves around with graceful abandon, dancing on her walls in the moonlight. They whirled haphazardly, motionless, in two dimensions. They were whirling without result, just like Victoria's troubled thoughts.
Chapter Nine.
INFORMATION STATION
VICTORIA DROVE BACK TO TRENTON ON SUNDAY night. She had notified the D.A.'s office that she was going to take some vacation time. On Monday morning, she intended to sleep late but woke up at six A.M., just like always. She showered, toweling her short hair, forgoing the dryer. She put on jeans and a T-shirt, grabbed her navy pea-coat, and went out for breakfast.
At ten o'clock, she found herself sitting alone on a bench in Bromley Park, watching birds flutter around, trying to steal an old sandwich crust out of a trash basket. She wasn't sure what she would do. She had decided to set out to prove that the Ri
na brothers had killed Carol, Tony, and Bobby, but her expertise was litigation, not investigation. She wondered if she could hire Reuben Dickson, a retired homicide detective whom she had befriended. He was good, methodical and not afraid to dig deep, but he was old with arthritis. Last time she'd seen him, he could barely walk. She had several thousand dollars in the bank she could use to hire him. She thought she still had his home phone number from a case they'd worked on together just before he pulled the pin. She was just getting set to leave the park when a small terrier came up and sat in front of her. She looked down at him.
"Hi, honey," she said, and he jumped up on her lap and licked under her chin. She laughed and scratched him behind the ears. Then, without warning, he moved off her lap, snapped up her purse in his mouth, and took off across the park with it. "Stop, come back," she yelled foolishly. Then she jumped up and ran after him. The dog raced into the women's toilet. She chased him in there and slammed the door shut so that he couldn't get out. The terrier came out from the stall and dropped the purse at her feet.
"Bad dog," she said and picked it up and looked inside. "Son-of-a-bitch!" she said, discovering her wallet was gone. "You little thief, what did you do with my wallet?" she asked the dog.
Then Beano Bates stepped out from one of the stalls, holding it in his hand. He had her case folders under his other arm. "He's not the smoothest dip in the world, but in a pinch, it's better then breaking into a house." He was counting her money. "You don't carry much cash, do you?"
"You know something?"
"What?"
"I've never met a bigger asshole."
"Compliment accepted," he said. "I need your help. I think we want the same thing."
"Highly unlikely," she said, thinking he seemed like a completely different person from the one in the restaurant. That man had been unsure and flustered; this one was in charge and self-assured. She could see he was a remarkably good actor. She decided she couldn't trust him for a second.
"Carol was your friend, I could tell. I could see on TV how much you cared for her-"
"Hey," she interrupted, "forget the rubdown."
"You know, for a good lawyer, you aren't much of a listener."
"It's because most everything you say is honeybaked bullshit."
"I'm going to get even with Joe and Tommy Rina for killing Carol. But to do that, I need information. I stole your case files because I thought the depositions you took would be in there. I missed. I need to know where these guys keep their pickle jars buried."
"Their what?"
"Money. I need to know what businesses they're in. How their action works, what people they're afraid of, who and where the leverage is."
"I hope they're afraid of me." She glowered.
"No offense, Vicky, but they're not afraid of you. You had your shot, you whiffed it. Now it's my turn. I'm gonna get these two gavones. All I need from you is an hour or two of careful briefing."
"And just how do you figure to get Tommy and Joe Rina?" she said, getting mildly interested.
"I was thinking I'd get Tommy to testify against Joe, get him to turn State's evidence on the Trenton Tower murders."
"You're a moron."
"I am?" He smiled.
"Yeah, you are. Tommy and Joe are brothers. Tommy thinks his younger brother walks on water. He's been protecting Joe since the sixth grade. Tommy's never gonna testify against Joe. Won't ever happen."
"I don't think their relationship has ever been adequately tested."
"And you're gonna test it?" She was sure he was wasting her time. This guy had nothing; she'd be better off taking her chances with an arthritic homicide dick.
"Hey, you know what a good mark and a mob boss have in common?"
"What?"
"Greed. Without greed no con works. I'm gonna throw a few pounds of red meat between those two Rottweilers and see what happens."
"You're Frank Lemay, aren't you?" she said, abruptly changing the subject. "You're the one who got beaten at the Greenborough Country Club."
"Yes," he finally said. "Unfortunately, that was me."
"So, if you had come forward instead of running from the hospital, Carol probably wouldn't be dead."
He looked at her for a long moment. "We could do this together, for Carol." And then he said the first thing that touched her: "I loved her, Victoria. She was my only friend in the world."
His eyes were so sad, in that instant she could see how deep his affection for Carol was.
"I'm gonna get Tommy Rina to testify against Joe," he said, with anger in his voice that made her wonder if he just might be able to do it. "All I need from you is a little information."
"Why would I help you?" she said. "You're a fugitive. If I get caught helping you, I could get disbarred, or put in jail."
"It's the price for getting this back," he said, holding up her case folders.
"Tough break there, pal. I don't need that anymore… I've decided to move on."
"Okay, then we share the guilt for Carol. It was because of me she was there in the first place, but you blew the security arrangements. We both need to set things right for that."
She stood silently, her mind a slate of unanswered questions. Now, not just her thoughts, but her emotions were whirling like the ballerinas on her bedroom wall.
"You've read my sheet… I'm not a fuck-up when it comes to this kinda thing. I'll turn these two sharks against one another, but I need information. I can't put a game together unless I know the layout… I need a clear picture of their personal and financial setup to take them down."
They stood in the bathroom with its pungent smell of urine and disinfectant while they evaluated one another. Roger-the-Dodger finally broke the tension, his sharp bark cracking against their eardrums.
"If I help you, what's in it for me?" she asked.
"Satisfaction; knowing you helped pull these two guys under, for Carol's sake."
She suddenly knew what she wanted. She looked at Beano Bates and then down at the dog, who was still sitting at her feet, wagging his tail as if he wanted to be congratulated for stealing her purse.
"Satisfaction isn't enough," she finally said. "If you're going to run a scam on these guys, I want to be part of it."
Beano was caught off-guard. "It's not your style, Victoria. You've got target fixation. That's an okay trait for a D.A., but it's a horrible one for a grifter. Sometimes, in a scam, you have to do everything backward… you have to hold on by letting go, increase by diminishing, multiply by dividing. You'd never be able to do that."
"I'm not interested in your assessment of me. The fact is, I do know about the Rinas; I know where their businesses are, where their hidden gambling interests are, who they associate with, even where their mistresses live… the whole stinking clove of garlic. You want to know what I know, that's my condition."
"I can't," he said slowly.
"Then you don't get anything," she said. "You can drop those file folders in any convenient trash can."
There was a long moment as they stood in the dimly lit toilet. Then she turned to leave.
"Okay," he finally said, "but if I take you along, you stay back. You're just an information station, a resource."
"Go fuck yourself," she said in anger. "You come to me, spill orange juice all over my best suit, steal my case files, pretend to be half-a-dozen people from Amp Heywood to Martin Cushbury… Christ, you have more personalities than Sybil. No, dammit! Carol was my friend too. You take me because you need me. Weil negotiate the rest as we go."
"It's not a courtroom, Vicky. There are no rules. No legal equations to stick to, no motions or countermotions, no judge to referee."
"Yes or no?" she finally said.
Beano could see the fire in her eyes. She was standing before him, defiant and beautiful. He didn't know which of those traits made up his mind, but in that second, he knew the ground had shifted between them.
"Be at the Motel 6 at eight o'clock tomorrow morning. But the first time
I need something and you come up dry, I'm gonna leave you on the side of the road."
"You can try," she said.
He moved past her, out of the toilet.
"Hey," she said, and he turned. "Aren't you going to give me my wallet back?"
Irritated, he threw it to her and dropped her case folders in the metal trash container inside the bathroom. She could dig them out if she wanted. Outside he whistled for Roger-the-Dodger, but the terrier didn't come. He went back inside to find the dog looking up at Victoria Hart as if he'd just found the Virgin Mother.
"Come on, Roger. You can drool on her tomorrow," he said.
Reluctantly, the dog followed him out of the restroom.
"What an asshole," Victoria said, then she left the bathroom without even looking at the folders that contained her most humiliating legal defeat.
*
PART THREE
LETTING GO
"Hold on by letting go; increase by diminishing;multiply by dividing."
– BILLIE SOL ESTES
Chapter Ten.
"PAPER COLLAR" JOHN
THEY WERE STANDING IN THE MORNING SUNSHINE OUT-side Beano's Motel 6 near Trenton. Rusting Pontiacs and primered pickups dripped oil and morning dew.
"We'll take your car," he said, looking at the spotless new white Nissan parked behind her.
"Who's paying for all this?" she asked, as they moved to the car and she got behind the wheel.
Beano put his suitcases and canvas bag in the back seat. He opened the passenger door for Roger. "Atlantic City," he said, without answering her question.
"Why?" she said stoically.
"That's where 'Paper Collar' John is meeting me," he replied, leaving her in just as much confusion.
She snorted her anger, got the car going, and left the seedy motel behind. Roger-the-Dodger found a place right next to Victoria's thigh and curled up there, chin on his paw. He shot Beano a satisfied look.
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