Street Legal

by William Deverell

  “I’m not interested in that kind of game, André.”

  “No game, an auction.”

  “I really don’t like your laissez-faire attitude about this, André.”

  “Pardon me. Maybe I am talking crazy.” He got up from the bed and put on a tie, carefully knotted it. “Let me t’ink about their offer, Carrington.”

  “Well, I should go, you have a date.” Carrie couldn’t help herself: “Anyone I know?”

  “Waitress in the bar downstairs.”

  Fast worker, here’s another two-timer — wasn’t he practically engaged to Lenore Woznick?

  The phone rang. “Allô? Yes, I will meet you in, say ten minute? If you do not mind to wait?”

  Carrie propelled herself to her feet. “I’m off.”

  Cristal saw her to the door. “That is a . . . you say, exquisite? Exquisite dress. I t’ink you have very much taste. A lady.”

  “Thank you.”

  “But — can I say? — sometime I t’ink not a ’appy lady. Maybe there are other things in your ’ead that worry you more than a little murder trial.”

  “Maybe there are.” She had tried to block Ted from her mind, but couldn’t now. The sex, it’s incredible. It’s like the gods matched us.

  Somehow she summoned a bright smile. “Well. Please come by my office. Ten o’clock.”

  He opened the door for her, but held her there for a moment. “What is it you like about this work, this criminal law, Carrington? Is it because it is work that is close to the edge, where you like to be?”

  “I’m not sure if I do.” Her life recently had been much too close to the edge.

  “You go to dangerous places to meet criminals, you ride with gangsters in cars, you talk to a man who is murder the same day. It is how I see you, close to the edge. I t’ink about you sometime, my lady lawyer. But maybe you are not such a lady in court, eh?”

  “I don’t suppose I am, really.”

  “But always a lady with me.”

  She saw something in his eyes that was knowing and wry, something that seemed to penetrate her mask of calm professionalism, that made her feel slightly . . . unclothed.

  She fled before he could offer his electric hand.

  In the lobby, she still felt buzzed with his emanations, which were all mixed up with those very different ones from Ted and his incredible cosmic wavelength. Love. Melissa.

  How transported Ted had seemed. And representing his mistress in her divorce . . . My God, she thought, it is he who is having the nervous breakdown.

  She didn’t leave the lobby right away, but looked around to see if she could spot the surveillance, one of Mitchell’s cops. No likely candidates. Nor was any young, pretty waitress hanging about the lobby. Cristal was entirely too attractive, an unrepentant flirt — it was not surprising he could make opposite-sex friends so quickly. Sexy hit man. For a hit man is what he surely was. Removed from his magnetic presence, Carrie’s doubts in him were restored. He’d seemed a little too keen on that deal to be innocent.

  No alluring waitress showed up, but after a few minutes someone Carrie recognized did. Big Leonard Woznick. Heading for the elevator. She doubted he was here looking for a game of bridge. The wiry little man looked distinctly unhappy.

  Carrie was confused. Was he an unexpected visitor, or was this Cristal’s date? A liaison between Cristal and Woznick was one she had distinctly advised against. Obviously, Cristal had told him where to find him.

  She assumed Cristal’s friend and patron was here to convey a message of concern from the paranoid Billy Sweet. Should she walk in, catch them at this secret meeting? No, tomorrow, she would talk to Cristal, and if he lied to her, she’d be comfortable in her doubts about the man.

  She left the hotel, not looking forward to returning to her sad, lonely house.

  ***

  In Cristal’s room, Leonard Woznick’s fingers were clasping a bottle of Löwenbräu that Cristal had fetched him from the bar fridge. Cristal noticed the knuckles of his friend’s hand were showing white and that Woznick was grinning in a strained way. He was finishing a joke.

  “He says, ‘No, Doc, the liniment’s for my arms. The girls never showed up.’”

  He laughed harder than he had to at his own story. “The girls never showed up!”

  Cristal chuckled. “Lennie, you kill me.” He turned a corkscrew into his Château Lafitte.

  “So how’s everything, how’s it all goin’, they treatin’ you all right in this town? You gettin’ any action here?”

  “I ’ave enough action. How’s Lenore?”

  “The same, you know. Great. She misses you.” Woznick stretched out his arms — he seemed uncomfortable. He walked to the window. “Hey, that’s somethin’, that view.”

  “Take your jacket off,” Cristal said. It was too warm for such a bulky jacket. Leonard wasn’t very good at this.

  But Woznick kept the jacket on. “I gotta take a leak. Beer, it just goes through me. I had two in the bar downstairs.” He went into the washroom.

  Cristal carefully poured himself a glass of wine, held it to the light, admired the ruby colour. He heard Woznick’s loud peeing into the toilet bowl, heard his loud, tight voice, another joke, a two-liner.

  When Woznick came from the bathroom his two shaking hands were directing a .32 revolver and a silencer toward Cristal. Gun still extended, he moved cautiously toward the bed and perched on it.

  Cristal sipped his wine. “This is anod’er joke?”

  “It ain’t a funny one.”

  Cristal wondered: was this, then, what had been predicted? For he’d had a premonition of betrayal. No, he couldn’t see it coming from Leonard. It wouldn’t happen here and now. He suddenly knew that clearly, and this helped him to relax.

  “This is not the work you do, Lennie. This is work for a professional.” Casually, he drew on his cigarette.

  “If you’re gonna name names, you’re gonna name mine.” Woznick took one hand from his gun, wiped his sweaty palm on his jacket.

  “You took me in when I was broke. Do you t’ink I would rat on you?”

  Woznick breathed heavily, his face lined with despair.

  “Do you t’ink you can look Lenore in the face? You old cabachon, I love your daughter, I want to marry her. This is crazy, it is ridiculous, a very bad joke.” He blew two perfect smoke rings. “Lennie, sacrifice, you can’t do it. You know that.”

  Woznick, shattered, lowered the gun and his whole body began shaking. “It means they’ll kill me.”

  “They’ll thank you.”

  “Why?”

  “I can save Billy’s skin. And yours. Everyone’s.”

  Woznick looked up at him through bleak, raw eyes.

  “There’s an informer. Someone inside. I found out who he is.”

  Cristal saw the hope in his face. “You’re sure?”

  “Absolutely.”

  “Who is it?”

  Cristal shook his head. “I can tell you he is very close to the top. Explain to Billy I want to talk to his face. I will tell Billy, no one else. Tell him I need to be looked after, I’ll need money, ’eavy money. I will ’ave a few expense. I may ’ave to disappear for a while after this t’ing is over.”

  Cristal gently removed the gun from Woznick’s grip, and knelt and took the older man’s hands in his own. “I am very angry that they try to make you do this.”

  “I’m ashamed.”

  “Be ashame for them. Billy will pay for this. Beaucoup d’argent.”

  Now he broke the revolver and emptied the shells from it, then returned the gun to Woznick. “There. It is safer. You won’t shoot yourself in the foot, Lennie.”

  Woznick handed it back. “No, I want you should keep it. Maybe you gotta look after yourself.”

  Cristal shrugged, set it on a table.

&n
bsp; “Who told you about this informer?” Woznick said.

  Cristal hesitated. “My lawyer. She is a very good friend with the prosecutor.”

  ***

  Carrie sat in her living room seeking solace from Mozart, the clarinet quintet, music she thought might lift her mood. But her brain was still filled with Cristal, with Normie Shandler, with deals. With Ted. With the enormity of his having given his heart to another.

  A noise outside, a dog barking, a distant male shout: “Get away! Get away!”

  The Llewellyns’ terrier, always yapping at someone. Carrie went to the window, but it was dark outside, almost midnight. She thought she could make out a man lumbering down the street, the dog at his heels, and she heard Mrs. Llewellyn calling from the front stoop: “Bingo! Bad dog! Bingo, come here!”

  Suddenly Carrie felt exhausted. Another major day tomorrow.

  That night Carrie had dreams of André Cristal. She was dancing with him in a nineteenth-century ballroom, and he wore a dress uniform. Now Ted was on the dance floor, too, his eyes wide and frightened. I have to speak to you, he kept saying. But she and Cristal danced on and on, his electricity flowing into her.

  18

  Leon was staring out his office window — not meditating: daydreaming, mostly about Carrie — when Chuck wandered in with his morning coffee, and said, “You should’ve been there.”

  He then began describing in excruciating detail the drama of the slap heard around the world. How ghastly, Leon thought. Poor Carrie. Poor Ted. Leon was thankful he hadn’t been at that function, the pain could not have been borne.

  “She stalked out. Everyone stopped talking. You could’ve heard a pin drop. Ted stood around with a kind of puzzled look on his face for a few minutes before he left.”

  Leon wondered: What could he have said to her? What insult, what words could have been so cruel to cause Carrington to react that way in public?

  The phone rang, and Leon answered.

  “Un, oh, Leon, it’s me.” Ted’s voice, distant and hesitant. “I’ve got a . . . a problem, I . . . is Chuck there?”

  Leon passed the phone over, and Chuck listened for a minute without expression. Finally, he spoke: “I’ll come right over.” And he hung up.

  “What?”

  “I don’t know, the worst, maybe. He sounded pretty garbled.”

  Chuck rushed away.

  Leon envisaged Ted sorrowfully studying a vial of poison — he sounded as if he was in a total funk — Leon thought again of Carrie — he yearned to help her through this, but didn’t know how.

  ***

  Chuck found Ted where he had been told to expect him, in an office on the fourteenth floor of Royce Boggs’s office complex on Richmond Street. Ted’s door was closed, and no receptionist was outside it, so Chuck just knocked and walked in.

  Ted, with tennis racket in hand, wearing a business suit, was listlessly bouncing a ball off the far wall of this massive, sterile office, stroking it softly on the rebound, never missing. His back was to Chuck.

  “So what happened?” Chuck said.

  Ted didn’t turn around. clop, bounce, clop. “The divorce action will be dismissed by consent, parties to bear their own costs. We worked it out this morning.”

  “She’s gone back to Dr. Cartwright, eh?”

  “She told me she was breaking his heart. She couldn’t stand his pain.”

  “Yeah. She started worrying about that broken heart when she saw she was going to lose everything. Best thing that could have happened. She was a fucking mistake, Ted.”

  This time, Ted caught the ball in his hand. He turned around. He’d been crying: his eyes were red. Chuck didn’t know whether to feel sad or disgusted.

  “Carrie will have a good laugh,” Ted said. His face suddenly twisted into a kind of sick grin.

  “Yeah, she might find the irony amusing.”

  Ted hurled the ball at the thick pane window, and it caromed off his desk and against a wall, bringing down Ted’s law degree with a tinkle of broken glass.

  “I hate this office,” he said. “I hate Royce Boggs, and I hate his work. I screwed up a contract for him. He’s stopped inviting me up to the executive lounge.”

  “You’re falling apart.” To Chuck, this seemed obvious: the different parts of Ted were scattering to the winds.

  “I’ve been an utter prick.”

  “Couldn’t agree more.”

  “A ridiculous fool.”

  “Right on.”

  “Melissa, she . . . she ruined me. I can’t believe . . . She . . . she said she loved me! I’ve been a blind, stupid, total fucking dunce!” He swung his racket at his desk lamp and sent it crashing to the floor.

  Chuck grabbed him by both shoulders.

  “You’d better wire yourself back together, buddy, you’re losing it.”

  Ted’s taut body seemed to slowly relax. “Please help me, Chuck.”

  “I’ll clear my day. Let’s meet at noon at the Kew Gardens courts.”

  Ted nodded. “Yeah. You’ll probably beat me. Make the day a total losing experience.”

  Ted seemed to pull himself together, and Chuck felt it was safe to leave. At the door, Ted said, “Tell Carrie how lucky she is to be rid of me.”

  ***

  Exhausted by her day, Carrie had slept in until late that Wednesday morning, but decided to walk to the office anyway. When she arrived she found André Cristal already in the waiting room.

  “You’re on time. I thought your plans for last night might have kept you up late. The waitress in the bar downstairs.” Carrie tried to smile disarmingly, but couldn’t keep a nagging tone from her voice.

  “I ’ave to talk to you about that.”

  “If you want to confess, I’m not a priest.”

  He laughed. “Carrington, I fibbed about the waitress.”

  She led him to her office. “Explain.”

  “The date was with Leonard Woznick,” Cristal said.

  Carrie was pleased at this frankness, but she spoke sternly. “I dislike being lied to, André. And I thought I told you to stay away from him.”

  “I know. But I want to meet Billy Sweet. I want to give him to the police. To perform my end of the bargain.”

  “You’re putting your life in danger.”

  “It already is. Leonard had a revolver. He had orders to execute me.”

  Carrie was shocked. “What happened?”

  “Big Leonard, he could never do that. He is an old marshmallow. Maybe he just tried to scare me. Anyway, I told him I ’ave to meet Billy.”

  “André, I think things are getting out of hand here.”

  “I know what I am doing, Carrington.”

  “I don’t like losing clients.”

  “I t’ink you don’t like to lose, period. But you will win. I will give them Billy, and you will win our case.” He puffed contentedly on a cigarette. “How much, do you t’ink, they will pay me, the police?”

  “I can’t believe how much gall you have. Are you trying to get it from both ends?”

  “Maybe more fee for you, Carrington. We split it, everything the police pay.”

  “I am absolutely amazed at you.”

  He flashed his big smile. “They are all bastards, this horseman Mitchell, Billy Sweet, I want to bleed them. The bail moneys you ’ave, that is petty cash.”

  A bit of the con artist in this man, she decided. Real rogue. But a brave one, if not foolhardy.

  “We can win a verdict, André. You don’t have to take the deal.”

  “Now what I need is a small tape-recorder.”

  “I’m sure the police —”

  “No police. I do this on my own. When I ’ave the evidence, you can ask them how much it is worth. Lump sum, never mind the safe ’ouse and the change of name. A million dollars, that is a go
od starting point?”

  “And you want to scam Billy Sweet for a few million more. For agreeing not to turn him in.”

  “Let him sue me.”

  “This is preposterous.”

  “But maybe . . . fun, too?” His eyes were bright and hard upon her, mischief in them . . . something else, almost a little crazy. “I, also, I like it close to the edge. I do not get bored there.”

  The man was showing Carrie new dimensions, and they frightened her a little, but she also felt oddly attracted to the scoundrel in him — like a rascal thief played by David Niven or Cary Grant. She remembered last night’s dream, dancing with him, the electricity that flowed from his hands.

  “I’m not sure, André.”

  “Do you tell me not to? Is it your advice?”

  She thought a long while about that. She couldn’t tell him what to do with his life. The cause of closing the books on Billy Sweet was not an ignoble one. She thought of Trixi Trimble, wired, wasting her life.

  “If you give me those instructions . . . okay. But I don’t want to hear anything more about extorting money from Sweet.”

  “Then you ’ave ’eard nothing.”

  “I think it’s a very, very dangerous kind of business.”

  “Those who don’t risk don’t live. But I will be careful. I am moving ’otels.”

  “How will Sweet’s people contact you?”

  “I don’t want to involve you, Carrington, but . . . they will probably phone you.”

  “Well, that does involve me, doesn’t it?”

  “I t’ink they will understand you are just doing your job . . . Okay, it is a bad idea, I will not put my lady lawyer in danger.” But he was looking intently at her, challenging.

  “Oh, heck, do it . . . Keep in touch with me. We’ll see how it’s going. We can always call a halt.”

  Cristal stood, paused, looked at the wall: her degrees, her father’s large mounted photograph, a wedding photo of her and Ted that she had not got around to throwing in the garbage.

  She scribbled a note. “Here’s my home phone number, don’t give it out. Oh, and don’t forget, you’re in court tomorrow to set a date for your preliminary.”