“Madden feels he can beat the rap.”
“How? By bribing judges?”
“That was a piece of damned foolishness. I had no part in it.”
“So they keep piling it on, adding extra counts to the indictment. On the next round, you’re going to have one very careful jurist up there on the bench. Seems your clients are hell-bent on shooting down your record of acquittals.”
Colson got to his feet. He walked over to the window and stood looking at me, his jaw set. “All right, Jordan. I’ll have a session with Oster. I’ll lay it out for him. I give you my solemn pledge that if—”
The buzzer stopped him. He went back to his desk and picked up the phone. “Who? Who? Yes, put him on.” He listened and I saw him go tense, sudden shock in his face. “Oh, no!” he said in a hushed whisper. “When did it happen? Yes, of course, I’ll come right over.” He rang off and looked up, his mouth stiff with restraint. “Ira Madden is dead.”
I whistled softly. “How did it happen?”
“Car accident. Madden was behind the wheel, heading north on the FDR Drive. Lost control at the Forty-second Street exit and slammed into a concrete abutment. Too damned lazy to attach his seat belt and damned near impaled on the steering wheel.”
“Driving alone?”
“No. Floyd Oster was with him.”
“Hm. What were his injuries?”
“Broken wrist. Seems he threw his hand up to keep his face out of the windshield.” Colson shook his head. “How am I going to break this to Lily? She loved the old tyrant.”
What they needed was privacy. He was brooding uncertainly at the door as I walked through it, his face half-past-six on a stopped clock. I thought I knew what ailed him. There always are dissident factions within a union, angling to take over top management. A new team might sweep out all of Ira Madden’s old henchmen, including union counsel Edward Colson.
Madden was given a splendid send-off: bronze casket, a cortege of retainers one-eighth of a mile long, and floral offerings more suitable for a wedding. I attended the last rites out of curiosity but derived no pleasure from the proceedings. Funerals are a pagan ritual relished only by morticians and enemies and possibly a few heirs of the deceased.
Lily Madden, chief mourner, sole surviving relative, shoulders stooped, face hidden behind a black veil, was managing to stay upright with the help of Ed Colson’s strong right arm. Floyd Oster was not one of the pallbearers. His left wing, in a cast, was cradled by a sling around his neck, no identifiable expression on the carp face.
In unctuous tones, the presiding cleric chanted a litany of Ira Madden’s sterling characteristics and accomplishments that would have astonished the deceased. The words brought convulsive sobs from Lily.
Mourners departed from graveside just before the final planting. I watched Ed Colson hand Lily into a limousine and then drop back for a brief colloquy with Floyd Oster. There was a snarl on Oster’s face. Ultimately, Colson threw up his hands in frustration and joined his fiancée. Oster climbed into the following car.
When I got back to my apartment, I phoned Laura Bolt. Her answering service said she had gone away for the weekend. I thought, why not? Manhattan is not unalloyed bliss during the furnace summers. I longed for a touch of respite myself. Two days fishing on a quiet mountain lake seemed like a good idea. So I packed essentials and ordered my car.
Then, heading toward the Henry Hudson Parkway, partly on impulse and partly because it was on my way, I decided to stop off for another crack at Floyd Oster.
I parked in front of the brownstone and rang his bell. No response. I kept my finger on the button and finally gave up. As I left the building, there he was, sauntering toward me, lugging a six-pack of beer. I blocked his path at the entrance. He fixed me with a cold, reptilian stare.
“Move it, Jordan. Get out of my way.”
“Ah, Floyd,” I said, “you don’t listen. Not to me, not to your own lawyer. Stupid, greedy, bullheaded. Words can’t penetrate that skull of yours, so I’ll have to try something else.”
“Yeah?” A twisted sneer. “Like what?”
“Like putting you behind bars. My personal project, Floyd. I’m going to bring you down. Ira Madden is no longer around to provide protection. Some new boys are going to take over the union. Colson will dump you, too. So you’re all alone, Floyd. And if—”
I stopped, clued by a sudden flicker in his eyes, a slight shifting of weight. As the tip of Oster’s heavy shoe shot upward, I swiveled, grabbing his ankle, and twisting his leg through a ninety-degree turn. It lifted him off the ground and when I let go, he fell heavily to the pavement, arms flailing. Oster landed on the poor broken wing and he whinnied like a horse in a burning barn.
I bent contritely to lend him a hand. He pulled away, frothing obscenities. He had the lexicon of a mule skinner.
“Now you just leave that poor injured man alone,” a high-pitched voice snapped at me from behind.
She was small and wrinkled, frumpily dressed, with flour-white hair, stern-visaged, brandishing an umbrella. “Aren’t you ashamed of yourself, a big man like you? Attacking Mr. Oster, him wounded and helpless.” Her lips were so tightly compressed they were invisible. She threatened me with the umbrella. “Get away from him. Shoo! If you don’t leave this instant, I’m going to make a citizen’s arrest. Felonious assault.”
I repressed a smile. This feisty little specimen would barely tip the scale at eighty pounds, and I didn’t for a moment doubt that she was ready to put the arm on me and hustle me down to the local precinct.
I looked down at Oster. “Sorry about your wrist, Floyd. It was unavoidable. But from here on, no more dialogue.” Then I turned quickly and went to my car and drove off. I stopped thinking about Oster when I crossed the George Washington Bridge and headed north on Route 17.
It turned out to be a profitable weekend. I caught six medium-sized trout. I skinned, boned, sautéed, and consumed them with vast relish. I went to bed early and got up early and I thought how pleasant it would be to spend one whole month engaged in these wholesome endeavors. On Monday morning, I drove back to the city.
A visitor was waiting for me in the lobby of my apartment building — Detective-Sergeant Wienick, unsmiling, barrel-shaped and balding. “Have a nice weekend, Counselor?” he inquired politely.
“A reception committee from the New York Police Department,” I said. “Well, Sergeant, what cooks?”
“What cooks is a drive in a city-owned vehicle. The lieutenant is waiting for you.”
He meant Lt. John Nola of Homicide. The lieutenant sat in his office, swarthy, trim, precise, abrupt to the point of discourtesy, probably the best cop on the force. Although I had not been in touch with him recently, he dispensed with all amenities.
“You go away for the weekend, Counselor, how come you don’t let your secretary know where you can be reached?”
“And be at the mercy of the telephone? No, sir.”
“Maybe there’s an emergency.”
“Emergencies are for doctors, not lawyers.” I lifted an eyebrow. “What’s your problem, Lieutenant?”
“We both have a problem. Yours may be more serious than mine. All right, Wienick, let the lady have a look at him.”
The sergeant stepped out and returned a moment later, ushering a woman through the door, the little old lady with the umbrella. She stopped short, staring at me. She pointed a quivering finger and announced in a shrill voice, “That’s him! That’s the man! I saw him attack poor Mr. Oster. I saw him with my own eyes.” She fell back a step. “He’s dangerous. Don’t let him get close to me. He shouldn’t be allowed on the street.”
“No doubt in your mind?” Nola asked.