“I make no point,” Bunting replied. “I merely hope for cooperation. My information is that late last year Mr. Wine was arrested on various counterfeiting charges and you negotiated an agreement that resulted in the dropping of those charges.”
“Correct.”
“With whom was that arrangement made?”
“The D.A., who else?”
“That’s the question. Did you meet or speak to a man named Francis Goodnow at that time?”
“Never heard of him.”
“An older man. Not in perfect health.”
Nuncio shook his head.
Bunting took out a passport-sized photograph, crossed the room, handed it to Nuncio. It showed a gray-haired man in a bow tie who looked healthy enough.
“Don’t know him,” Nuncio said, giving it back.
Bunting held out a photo of another man: much younger, with blond hair and an angular face. This was the white-suited motorcyclist who’d lain in the park last night, neck broken.
“Never seen him, either.”
Bunting sat back down on the white leatherette chair. He fished out his embroidered handkerchief, held it in his lap, eyes fixed on Nuncio.
After a moment or two, Nuncio said, “If you’re looking for something dirty in that deal, you won’t find it. We make deals like that every day, the D.A. and me.”
“We’re speaking of the federal D.A.”
“That’s right. Counterfeiting.”
“How much time elasped between your proposal and his acceptance?”
“Don’t know. Less than a day. He said he’d have to …”
“Have to what, Mr. Nuncio?”
“Talk to Washington.”
“Did he?”
“Yeah, but so what?”
For an answer, Bunting raised the handkerchief again and blew his nose, not quite as loudly as before. “Thanks for your time, Mr. Nuncio,” he said, and was out the door in thirty seconds.
Through the living room window, Nuncio saw a long black car draw up and take him away. He kept watching until long after it was gone. Then he took a deep breath of El Producto air and sighed it out.
Time to get ready for work, although in truth he wasn’t scheduled in court. His only client that morning was a fat widow who’d been caught selling stolen designer dresses out of her little shop in Sausalito, would probably buy him lunch, and might even want more of his time after. Nuncio’s policy was to bill for lunch, but draw the line at that. He decided on the brown suit with subtle green checks. It hid his paunch nicely.
Turning from the window, Nuncio noticed Bunting’s balled-up handkerchief lying on the leatherette chair. He thought of the way dogs piss to mark their territory. He picked up the handkerchief, dropped it in the trash under the kitchen sink, washed his hands in hot soapy water.
Nuncio went upstairs and changed from the Hedonism robe into the brown suit with the subtle green checks. While he dressed, he clicked on his cassette player and listened to the tape for the third time.
Listened to Hugo Klein say: “Under some interpretations, your presence in this room would render me liable to criminal charges.” Listened to Blake Wrightman say: “But I’d like to know who told you that I rigged that timer, if you haven’t seen Rebecca since before the bombing.” Listened to Klein say: “Do you know a man named Francis Goodnow?”
This was all very interesting, more so since he had kept an eye on Klein’s ascending career over the years. He had even faced him in court, working as an assistant state prosecutor in his first year out of law school. An unpleasant memory. Yes, it was interesting, but some indefinite distance beyond his comprehension. Because of that, and because he didn’t want visits from Bunting or any like him, and because he knew his own limits, Nuncio decided to destroy the tape.
But how? How to do it and be completely safe? Nuncio popped it out of the player. Ordinary Maxell high bias tape, identical to millions of cassettes in cars and houses across the land, distinguished only by the handwritten “VHK” on the stick-on label. Perhaps all he had to do was peel off the sticker, burn it, flush away the ashes, wipe the tape. But there were rumors that the feds had machines that could reconstruct the electronic whispers left on a wiped tape. Maybe it would be best to wipe it first, then record over it and stick it in his collection. Or better yet, in someone else’s collection. He could just toss it through the open window of any car parked on the street. Not simple, not tidy, not brilliant, but good enough.
Nuncio peeled off the “VHK” sticker, lit it with a match, dropped it in the bathroom sink, and washed it down the drain. Then he went to the spare room, searched through boxes of his departed children’s old toys and school supplies, found the big magnet bought for one son during a brief period when he thought he was fascinated by electricity. He passed the magnet over both sides of the cassette, then went into the living room and studied his tape collection. He chose Leon Redbone’s Christmas album.
Nuncio switched on his Hitachi double deck recorder, stuck Leon Redbone in deck A and the wiped tape in deck B. He hit High-Speed Dubbing, checked his levels, turned off the speakers. Then he waited in the white leatherette chair, dressed in his brown suit with the subtle green checks, tapping his foot.
The buzzer buzzed. It jolted Nuncio, as though he were wired to it. Nuncio glanced around for a place to hide the tape, saw none that wouldn’t be discovered in minutes by a well-trained cop, to say nothing of the kind of people Bunting would employ. Nuncio rose, walking past the pulsing lights of the tape player, spinning dually in silence, and went downstairs.
The man outside wasn’t Bunting. He was old, bald, gaunt; he wore a seersucker suit and a blue bow tie. Nuncio was sure he didn’t know the man; all the same, there was something familiar about him.
The old man licked his lips; they were cracked, the tongue was yellow.
“Yes?” said Nuncio.
The old man licked his lips again. “I’d like a glass of water,” he said. His voice cracked; Nuncio had to stop himself from clearing his own throat.
“There’s a restaurant,” Nuncio said, pointing to Fazool. Then the bow tie caught his eye, calling instantly to mind the picture Bunting had showed him: an older man, not in perfect health. Knowledge was power. “A glass of water, you said? Come in.”
“Thank you.” The old man moved across the threshold with difficulty, took a long time on the stairs. Nuncio left him in the hall and went into the kitchen. When he returned with a glass of water, the old man wasn’t in the hall. Nuncio found him slumped in the white leatherette chair, his head back, his staring eyes fixed on the blinking lights of the tape player.
“Hey,” said Nuncio, and was relieved when the old man turned his head, proving he was still alive. “You okay?”
The old man nodded. Nuncio gave him the water, accidentally brushing his fingers as he did so. The old man’s skin was hot and dry. Nuncio wiped his hand on his suit pants.
The old man raised the glass to his lips and drank. His Adam’s apple bobbed up and down like blips on a heart monitor. He lowered his glass. “What’s that?” he asked. His voice seemed stronger.
“What’s what?”
“That blinking.”
“Oh, that. Just the record player.”
“But I don’t hear anything.”
“Right. I shut off the sound when I heard the buzzer.”
The old man nodded in a vague way that indicated uninterest, or possibly incomprehension. He looked around the room, as though seeing it for the first time; his eyes came to rest on Nuncio.
“Mr. Nuncio.”
Nuncio nodded.
“My name is … it doesn’t really matter what my name is. What matters is your client Mr. Wine.”
“I’ve already told the police everything I know.”
“I’m sure you did your duty. But sometimes the police lack know-how when it comes to …” The old man winced, reached into his pocket, took out an orange pill, popped it into his mouth, sipped from the glass. His eyes
closed for a moment. He opened them and said in a voice that had gotten weaker again: “When it comes to stimulating memory.”
“There’s nothing wrong with my memory.”
“I don’t say there is, Mr. Nuncio. But perhaps under stimulus it will operate even better.”
“What kind of stimulus?”
“I’m coming to that,” said the old man. He drank more water, ran his yellow tongue over his crusted lips. “Let me tell you a story,” he began. His voice cracked again. He could have played … what the hell was that guy’s name? Rumpelstiltskin.
“I’m already late for court,” Nuncio said.
“This may be worth your time,” the old man said. “It’s all about a conversation. A conversation between two men. They were discussing some events of long ago. One of the men was an eyewitness to those events. The other’s role has yet to be determined. I’m a … historian of events like that. It’s my job to ensure the accuracy of the historical record.” He paused, looked once more around the room. Everything was still, except the flashing lights of the tape deck. “You may wonder how I do that.”
“I think you’re about to tell me.”
The old man’s lips twitched, as though his brain had sent instructions to smile, but no smile came. “In this case, I made arrangements to have the conversation recorded.”
“Did you?” said Nuncio. He couldn’t stop his eyes from shifting to the tape player. The lights were on, but as he watched they stopped flashing. He heard the tiny click as the high-speed dubbing shut down.
“It’s standard procedure at my … academy,” the old man explained. He waved a bony hand in dismissal of the details of his office routine. “The conversation was duly recorded.” He paused.
The pause went on and on. “Yes?” Nuncio said at last.
The old man took a deep breath. “I’m sorry,” he said.
“For what?”
“I’m going to need to use your bathroom.”
“You are?” Nuncio was appalled.
The old man pushed himself out of the chair. As he did, his seersucker jacket opened, revealing a pink stain on his shirt. He walked stiffly from the room, down the hall, out of sight. Nuncio heard him trying one door and then another, until he came to the bathroom at the end. The door closed, the lock snicked shut.
Nuncio jumped up, hurried across the room to the tape deck. He pressed Rewind in the B deck, watched the Maxell tape spin back to the beginning, hit Play, switched on the speakers, lowered the volume to a whisper. Leon Redbone hit the first note of “White Christmas.” Nuncio fast-forwarded, caught snatches of “Frosty the Snowman,” “I’ll Be Home for Christmas,” “Let It Snow.”
He was safe.
Nuncio walked quietly down the hall, stood outside the bathroom door. He heard a groan. Then the old man spoke, in a low, furious voice. “You fucking Gerber,” he said. Nuncio backed away. The toilet flushed and water began running in the sink. Nuncio returned to the living room, sat on the couch, lit an El Producto.
The old man came walking slowly back into the living room. His face was white, pinched, his bow tie crooked. He sat on the arm of the chair. Not looking at Nuncio, not looking at anything, he said: “Please don’t smoke.”
Nuncio stubbed out his cigar. The ashtrays were filling with unsmoked cigars.
The old man watched the cigar for a few moments as though it were some dangerous reptile shamming death. Then he said, “The problem, Mr. Nuncio, is that the tape in question has gone astray.”
“That’s too bad.”
“Too bad. Yes. All the more so since it was almost in my hands. However.”
“However?” Nuncio said when the old man paused again.
“However, Mr. Nuncio, I have reason to believe that the motorcyclist who died in your park last night had it in his possession.”
“Then they’ll have it downtown,” said Nuncio, “with the rest of his effects. And it’s a public park.”
The old man shook his head. The cords in his neck tightened like guy wires in a storm. “They don’t have it downtown. And since they don’t, and since I have reason to believe it was in his possession, it follows that someone got to the tape first.”
The old man looked right at Nuncio, his eyes unveiled: hot, greedy, desperate. Nuncio kept his mouth shut.
The old man looked away, but waited for a long time before he spoke again. “Do you have notarizing power, Mr. Nuncio?”
“Of course.”
“And could you see to the proper composition of a will?”
“Yeah.” It occurred to Nuncio, for the first time, and much too late, that the old man might be armed. He shifted toward the far end of the couch.
“Could you do it here and now?”
“What are you getting at, Mr.…?”
“G.”
“Gee?”
The old man nodded. “I have a confession to make.” His gaze focused on something far away. Nuncio waited. “I’m … unwell,” the old man said. “I don’t have long to live.”
There was another pause. A question formed in Nuncio’s mind, a question he was unable to keep silent. “How long?”
The old man’s lips twitched in a second stillborn smile. “Weeks. Possibly months. But not …”
“Years?”
“No. Not years.” He drew the word out, full of yearning, making Nuncio think of the endless summers of his boyhood.
“I’m sorry,” Nuncio said. It seemed appropriate.
“Don’t be. It may be the best thing that ever happened to you.”
“How is that?”
“Or to some other lucky fellow. I have no heirs, Mr. Nuncio. I’m not rich, but do own an apartment in Georgetown, purchased a long time ago, with a present market value in excess of four hundred thousand dollars. Unencumbered by mortgage, Mr. Nuncio,” he added, anticipating the question already rising in Nuncio’s mind. “In addition, I have a small portfolio of stocks and bonds, worth about two hundred thousand, and a cottage in the Adirondack mountains, worth a ridiculous amount, considering that my father paid fifteen hundred dollars for it after the war.”
“What’s ridiculous?”
The old man shrugged. “One hundred and fifty. Possibly more. There’s also a 1985 Mercedes sedan in good condition. I don’t recall the model number. The point is, Mr. Nuncio—” The old man winced, started to double over, caught himself. He stuck a knuckle in his mouth, bit on it, slowly straightened. He took a deep breath, then another.
“Yes?” said Nuncio.
“The point is,” the old man continued, but now so softly that Nuncio had to strain to hear him, “that I would be pleased to write and execute a will bequeathing all the above-named possessions to the person or persons who could provide me with that tape.”
Nuncio’s eyes went to the unblinking lights of the tape deck. He was suddenly weak, faint, hot. He licked his lips; they felt cracked, his tongue dry. Seven hundred and fifty fucking grand. Plus a 1985 Mercedes, in good condition. Class. The car gleamed in his mind like an ideal. Then it was shoved aside by the seven hundred and fifty fucking grand. There was no God, not for the Nuncios of this world. He started to shake inside the brown suit with the subtle green checks.
The old man followed Nuncio’s gaze. He rose, moved across the room, examined the machine’s buttons, pressed one. A banjo plinked a little riff and Leon Redbone began singing “There’s No Place Like Home for the Holidays” out of the side of his mouth.
The old man turned to Nuncio, his brow furrowing.
Nuncio raised his hands, palms up. “I haven’t got it,” he said. Understanding of what he had done hit him in waves, each bigger than the last. He felt like crying. He hadn’t cried in years, not since he’d been fired by Little Mo Pagliatto, controller of an entire crooked union in the East Bay. “I wish to God I did, sir. God, I wish to God I did.”
The old man’s puzzlement turned to anger, then to nothing at all. He didn’t look at Nuncio again. He just walked out of the room, into th
e hall. Nuncio heard him on the stairs, heard the front door open and close.
Then there was nothing to hear but “Christmas Island.” Nuncio listened to it. Leon Redbone had a snide, insinuating way with a song. It was the perfect accompaniment to Nuncio’s thoughts. Seven five oh. Oh oh oh. Plus the Benz. He’d tried to be clever and ended up being dumb.
Like Brucie Wine, Nuncio realized, all at once. Just exactly precisely like Brucie Wine. The disgusting little asshole.
Part IV
30
Emily dreamed she was in San Francisco. She’d been there once, with her parents, years before. In her dream she went into labor while driving the yellow Volkswagen Beetle across the Golden Gate Bridge. Then all the tires burst and the car stopped. Traffic disappeared. She tried to get out of the car, but her stomach was too big. Uncle Sam arrived to examine her. He told her she wasn’t pregnant at all; it was a tumor.
Emily sat up in the darkness. She rested a hand on her stomach, just beginning to swell, like some exotic soft-skinned fruit. She waited for the baby to flutter, to move, to do something. “Zachary,” she said softly. “Zachary.”
Her womb was still.
3:00 A.M. She got out of bed, threw on her robe, went downstairs. The house was hot and quiet. She turned on the kitchen light, poured a glass of water, leaned against the edge of the table. She found herself staring at the phone on the wall.
“It’s not far,” Charlie had said. “I’ll be home soon.”
But another day, the fourth, had passed, and he still wasn’t home. His phone call had begun in silence, lapsed into silences, ended in silence. In those silences she had heard traffic, a boat whistle; she had heard hesitation and doubt. And what about those other calls, two or three, that had been nothing but silence? Had Charlie been on the other end of them as well, screwing up the courage to talk, like a shy teenager? That wasn’t like him. Were those silences then just part of the everyday electronic world of glitches and misdialings? Or something else?
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