by Mark Lisac
“That’s it?”
“No. When you get home, you’ll see Finley got upset with your sending him a message and he left one for you. Take it and forget about it. You said you and your brother drew the line at killing?”
“That’s right. We do. We never had…”
“Do you think Finley has ever killed anyone?”
Lenny’s mouth compressed again and he blinked several times.
“Do you think he’s capable of killing again if he feels his life his threatened, especially now that his sister is dead and he feels he doesn’t have much left to lose? If you two want to stick your necks into a trap, that’s your lookout. I don’t want to see him dragged into something like that. He doesn’t deserve to spend five or ten years in prison over the likes of you. Leave him alone. And leave me alone. I wouldn’t kill you. But I can probably make you wish I had. Leave your bat and chain. I may want to go for a bike ride and play a little baseball with my friends.”
The Rat Brothers shuffled out of the condo. Asher watched them get into the elevator. Then he went out onto his balcony and watched them walk down the street. A couple out for a late walk looked a long time at them as they approached. The brothers passed the couple, got into their truck ,and drove away.
Asher knew he was letting them get away with criminal acts. He also felt sorry for them. Rats lived dangerous lives and often didn’t live long; that was why they had big litters.
He went to his bathroom to clean up and assess the damage to his mouth.
“My friends,” he thought. “Enough of them for a card game or to share a bike ride with. Not quite enough for playing any kind of baseball.”
36
HE GOT TO THE OFFICE LATE IN THE MORNING. HE HAD slept in, then gone to his dentist for a quick assessment. The loose tooth would probably set in again; the cracked one would have to be capped.
After that, he stopped in the all-day grill down the street for sausage and eggs, thinking a big breakfast would help him recover from the previous night’s physical and emotional drain.
He had a bandage over most of the scraped line of raw flesh running back from his mouth along his jawline, more to spare people the sight than to promote healing. The waitress in the grill had not commented on it. She was at least as old as Asher and looked like she had seen bruises and cuts before. She had been friendly, though. Her not talking about his injury was a comment in itself — life’s a ride around a bumper-car track, honey, but I hope you don’t get hit too hard or too often.
He worked through most of lunch hour and found Jackson had a little time free before meeting clients. Jackson saw the damage and let a slight lift of his eyebrows ask the question.
“More trouble from the Apson case,” Asher said. “I pushed Gerald Ryan on it. I guess he decided all he could do was call in a couple of the small-time lowlifes he hired to do some of his dirty work around Barnsdale last fall. He was scared. He got them scared. Nothing like fear to send people out of control.”
“You look like you’re more or less in one piece. Did you call the police?”
“No, no police. They got the worst of it. I think they’re convinced to go home and be quiet now. One of them got me pretty good with a bicycle chain. It was probably good that he did. They’re a pair of brothers, both of them mean-minded, suspicious, resentful of most of the world. If I hadn’t been hurt, they’d be nursing a grudge. They saw me bleed and their sense of justice should be satisfied.”
“But they weren’t attacking you on their own account.”
“No. Ryan’s in deep with the oil museum. He pushed PFAC to lend about five hundred million to the corporation. That’s why you’re not going to be on the board, you’re too likely to ask questions. And he’s the source of all the trouble down there. One way or another, he probably egged on Turlock. Turlock had his own reasons to want Apson to shut up. But Ryan would have wanted Apson dealt with both to protect the government and to protect himself. Maybe more the latter. Proving any of it is another matter. Turlock would have talked already if he was ever going to.”
“You’re going to leave it at laying a beating on Ryan’s thugs, then?”
“Morley… I came close to losing it with them. I don’t want anything more to do with beatings. Ryan has to be dealt with. If he loses his job and his reputation, it will be worse than anything I could do to him physically. I’m worried that it may amount to the same thing. When I started hitting those guys last night, I lost sight of the line between self-defence and rage. Not just at them but at everything bad that’s happened.”
“But you didn’t. You found the line again.”
Asher breathed. “Yes, I found it again. It still looks faint.”
“What are you pursuing?”
“Things have to be set right. The funny business with the PFAC loan I can set aside. That’s politics. Not my interest. But people have been hurt and deeply wronged, killed in at least one case. I can’t let that go.”
“At least one case? Not just Apson?”
“Devereaux’s death was accidental. You don’t try to kill someone by arranging for a car to go off a road. But the circumstances were shaped. No helpful guidance from Clausewitz?”
Jackson thought a moment. “He was absolutely clear on one thing. When you’re in a war, the goal is to destroy the enemy’s capacity to fight. It doesn’t always come to that. Both sides often decide it’s in their interest to reach a peace settlement rather than take on more risk and more damage from a continued struggle.”
“I don’t think that’s going to be an option. Things have to be set right. I don’t expect life to be perfect. I’ve cut a lot of corners myself. But no one can go around destroying other people’s lives. Things have to be set right.”
“An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth? Perhaps literally so in your part of the case? You’ve always been too skeptical about religion to be insisting on Old Testament judgment.”
“That’s revenge. That’s what I nearly fell into last night. No. I want someone to accept responsibility. I want an assurance that bad things won’t happen again.”
“You’ve left one name out of this. Do you think Ryan could have been acting completely on his own?”
“Jimmy wouldn’t have wanted a scandal over the Oil Country financing. I don’t think he would have panicked and done something really stupid to keep it quiet, though. He’s gotten out of tough spots before. He could ride out something like that. Ryan had more on the line.”
“But?”
“There may have been more at stake than a simple financial scandal. A lot more. There’s no point burdening you with all the details. I’ve arranged to see Jimmy on Wednesday night. If things go south, you can get the essential information from Gordon Finley, or from a retired oilfield engineer named Fred Jensen, lives in Rosemont.”
“Harry, that sounds ominous. What do you mean, if things go south?”
“I don’t know what I mean. I just know a lot of things have been buried and they’ve come up to the light of day. There has to be a chain established so that they’re never lost again. Some things can stay buried and it doesn’t matter. Others, if they sit in the ground for a year or a hundred years, they just spread their poison.”
“I don’t like this. Why are you talking to me? You wouldn’t ask permission to do something dangerous. Are you asking permission to do something you’re not sure is right?”
“No. It’s as right as I can make it. I guess I want to know I will still have you for a friend. I think I’m about to lose one.”
37
THE NIGHT AIR WAS STILL. A DARKENING SKY WAS LOSING its last traces of
blue in the west. The powder blue of evening had deepened to indigo. Asher stood on the valley’s edge, looking up along the curves of the river.
It was still shirtsleeve weather. The rains of spring and early summer had been dissipating. The enveloping warmth meant there would be no dew in the morning. A quarter moon was rising behind him, but he did not look at it. He kept the main entrance to the government mansion in his peripheral vision. The old sandstone building stood out against the marble façade of the provincial archives. Tom Farber’s tractor stood behind him, underneath the moon.
Three figures emerged from the mansion, one ahead and two trailing. They stopped at the circle drive around the building. The man in front spoke briefly to the other two in a no man’s land between the orange-pink glare from two lampposts. After a few seconds, he resumed walking briskly toward the riverbank. Asher recognized Karamanlis’ gait even in the fading light. The arms swung only a little from the rounded shoulders and thick chest, the feet splayed out slightly as if to accommodate the weight of the tall and thick upper body.
Karamanlis approached him with a grin, saying he was sorry for the delay and the late hour. Things that needed doing had piled up during his absence in the U.S.
“Let’s go down here and take in the view from the steps,” he said. He led the way to the wooden stairs that descended to the walking trail along the river. He stopped at the first landing, when their heads were below the valley rim.
“It’s better to be down here,” he said. “I can’t go anywhere without security these days. I don’t trust them not to use those listening devices that let people eavesdrop at a distance. They don’t like that, but I told them I’d stay within yelling distance. You never know who might come up the steps. Sometimes people do unexpected things.”
“Fame has its price. It’s a good thing you have the private room on call at Poulos’s.”
“It’s the only place I can really relax. What brings you here, Harry? Must be something important that it couldn’t wait until tomorrow night.”
“You haven’t asked about my face.”
“You’re looking better than ever. A few little marks add character. I heard you ran into some trouble. Nothing you couldn’t take care of, I hope.”
“I’m still here and walking. I’m touched at your concern. All that public business to take care of and you still have someone giving you reports on the state of my health.”
Asher smiled back at Karamanlis. They looked in turns at each other and out over the valley.
“Gerald keeps me up to date on things. It’s one of his good qualities.”
“He has some bad ones. Like not knowing when to take good advice.”
“He told me you told him to resign. The way he described it, it sounded more like an order than advice.”
“I don’t care what it sounded like. He’s moving on.”
Karamanlis turned that over for a moment. “I can’t have that, Harry. Gerald is very useful. He’s more than useful. He helped me get elected. I need him to help me get re-elected. He’s good for laughs every day and he keeps things in perspective.”
“Sounds like a good friend.”
“Like you told me once, a man can have more than one friend. But if it comes to that, I spend a lot of time with him and I need a friend in my office, not just in Poulos’s back room. I’m in politics now, Harry, not the restaurant business.”
“That’s funny. I thought I was in a law firm, but now I’m also a silent partner in a tire and alignment shop that needed some capital to stay afloat.”
Asher quit looking out at the night valley and the first stars. He turned his full attention now to Karamanlis. “Business is what I wanted to talk to you about. You used to be a pretty well-rounded guy. Now you’re getting to be one-dimensional, a politician first and a politician last. I don’t think it’s a good career for you. It’s time you reassessed your life and moved on yourself.”
Karamanlis lost his smile and looked steadily at Asher. “That’s pretty vague. What exactly have you got in mind?”
“I’ve been thinking about everything that started with Apson’s murder, Jimmy. First it was Turlock running down Apson because Apson seemed to be getting ready to destroy the Parson’s reputation in public. Either that or blackmail him. Then it was the financing for the museum complex. Ryan and Turlock were both involved in arranging that. Don’t bother telling me you aren’t aware of what went on. For Turlock, keeping that under wraps may have been a minor motive. For Ryan, his job was on the line, probably his whole career in politics. I can see him arranging to put pressure on Apson, maybe worse. I know he hired a couple of second-rate criminals from outside of Barnsdale to make a nuisance of themselves. What I don’t know is how much he may have influenced Turlock to do what he did. But you? I can’t see you getting fussed about the Parson’s reputation. Even with the museum and casino deal, I don’t see you getting as worried about it as Ryan was. Yet you must have known what was going on — generally if not in detail.”
“You’re doing a lot of guesswork, Harry. Not like you.”
“It’s partially guesswork, yeah. I don’t expect ever to have everything nailed down. But it’s based on figuring out how all the pieces can fit together and make sense. Apson didn’t stop with Devereaux or the museum deal. Either by design or by bad luck, he ended up stumbling into Tom Farber’s secrets. What he finally wrote in his notes was that Farber killed the Simmons woman. He put it on paper.
He waited but there was almost no reaction. Karamanlis’ eyes opened slightly wider and the corners of his mouth turned down grimly.
“At first I didn’t think much about that. It seemed too unlikely, too much a sign that he was getting addled. It sounded like just something else for people to argue about endlessly: Who shot JFK? Who shot J.R.? It was all in the past anyway. But then things started clicking into place. I think that’s the paper you really wanted. It’s also the thing that would drive you to extreme measures. I know you don’t like to do the political dirty work. Let someone else handle that. But in this case you’d have been willing to act on your own. Maybe even Ryan wouldn’t have known what you were up to.” He stared at Karamanlis and waited for an answer.
“That’s pretty wild speculation, Harry. Or have you been talking to ghosts? You been to Apson’s grave and started talking to a mist hanging over it? A mist with a mouth? Maybe you should quit law and set up a séance service, take over from that ancient tea leaf reader who hangs out at the Constellation Grill.”
“Apson’s notes aren’t speculation. They’re documents. Flimsy ones but real. And if he was able to turn up evidence that he based those notes on, I may be able to find evidence too.”
“That wouldn’t be a good idea, old buddy. That would be a very bad idea.”
“You know, I’m not even sure that Apson was acting entirely on his own. He may have started out on his own. He was never onside with Turlock, for one thing. But he was a numbers guy, a small-town accountant and a constituency treasurer. How would he have ended up looking into Devereaux’s parentage? I could see him stumbling into that as a by-product of other stuff. He was timid. He wasn’t necessarily bright enough to know when something was dangerous. He was only bright enough to figure that out when he started getting warnings or threats.
“But he kept going. I don’t see him doing that on his own, Jimmy. I think he had encouragement. And I think he made personal reports now and then to the person behind him. He learned too much, didn’t he? It was one thing for the Parson to be Orion Devereaux’s father. It was another for Tractor Tom Farber to have killed her for it.
“You could understand how he would have done it out of a terrible jealousy. He would have done it
because the woman he loved turned out to be a tramp who decided to have some fun seducing straight-laced George Manchester and ended up having Manchester’s child. But that isn’t what happened. Farber was the father.
This time Asher didn’t wait for a reaction. He plunged on, watching Karamanlis’ face grow ever darker.” Manchester got in between them and convinced him the woman had to go. Farber agreed but it broke him and he ended up getting drunk day after day. He didn’t kill her out of jealousy. He did it because he loved her and couldn’t have her. He had done that to himself — he loved her, but he told her she had to go away and the baby could never be his. Maybe she told him she’d talk, or maybe he just went crazy. I don’t know. But he killed her and somehow covered it up. Gerald would have laughed at that. You wouldn’t. You would have done whatever you had to do to keep that secret buried for good.”
“Shut up, Harry. Time for you to shut up.”
“You might have got me to shut up before. Old scandals don’t make much difference. I’m not even sure I would have made a big point out of Farber murdering his secretary, especially since there’s no way to know exactly what happened. But John Apson was killed and her brother lost a leg to a shotgun. The shotgun blast was meant to kill me but I’ll write that off because it missed. I won’t let go of the other two. And I won’t let go of the fact that a woman I could have seen myself marrying had to live in fear while she was already dealing with terminal cancer.”
“That’s enough. God damn it. Does that tractor up there mean anything to you? Do you know what Tom Farber means to everyone in this province? He’s the start of everything. He is the people’s idea of who they are. Where do you think they get their confidence to start everything from a two-bit alpaca ranch to the biggest engineering firms in the province? Where would hundreds of thousands of people be if we didn’t have things like a finance and credit corporation? He’s the source of all that. He’s the reason people here think they count for something and they’re just as good as anyone back east or in New York or San Francisco. He’s more than that. Why do you think nothing much ever changes here? The past is all we’ve got. And he is our past. You think I was going to stand by and see all that destroyed? That man a murderer? With proof of it contained in a dying confession? We’d have been the laughingstock of the whole continent. And after they quit laughing, we’d have lived with shame for the next fifty years. Maybe a hundred years. You think I was going to let that happen? You think I will let it happen? When I could have stopped it?”
