“But instead of a hookup she told me that Kent wanted to have a meet with me.”
“What?”
“That’s what I said, man.” Twill even gave a mild expression of surprise. “I mean, she was actin’ like one of his crew. He’d been checkin’ me out while I was checkin’ him. That meant his sister and father might’a got it wrong. If anybody’s doin’ somethin’, it’s Kent.”
“What did the girl say... exactly?”
“She said that Kent liked what he saw and wondered if I wanted to get together today.”
“What were you talking about to him?”
“Places I go, scams I heard of down around the Village — light shit.”
“You think he’s trying to protect his sister?”
“Maybe so. But that don’t mean he’s not in charge.”
“What did you tell the girl?”
“That I’d meet Kent at the NYU student center this afternoon at two. And before you start talkin’ about gatherin’ and not doin’... I don’t have to go. I could just shine it on and let you take over.”
“What’s your read on this Kent, Twill?”
“It’s hard to say, Pops. I mean, havin’ the girl call me for him makes him at least a little bit in charge. But who knows? Maybe he’s her connection and this is just a favor. I won’t be able to tell until we talk — if we talk.”
Twill sat there in his reclining office chair calm as a pensioner on vacation in Bali. He had his hands laced behind his head, the expression on his face free from concern. He was telling me with his posture that the decision was mine and mine alone.
Like hell.
“Broad daylight?” I said.
“In a public place.”
“Don’t go anywhere with him until you check in with me.”
“You got it, Pops.”
30
The fever I’d been experiencing had also been a kind of fuel. If I was weakened, I didn’t know it, or at least I didn’t care. If I was sick, it didn’t conflict with my state of mind or sense of well-being. But now that I was on the mend I could feel the exhaustion in my bones. Rising up out of my teenage son’s client’s chair, I felt twice my weight; like a fighter answering the penultimate bell in a grueling match.
The twenty feet from his desk to my door was like the last mile for a condemned man — I had no idea whether I’d make it under my own power.
I grabbed the doorknob as much to steady myself as to enter my sanctum. I turned the knob, but before I could pull it my cell phone sounded.
Teetering toward my desk, I answered. “Hey, Luke. How’s my client?”
“Fine, last time I saw her,” the pool shark intoned. “I think she likes Johnny. He’s good with ladies just outta prison, opens doors and shit like that. They eat it up.”
“Couldn’t have a better bodyguard than Johnny Nightly.”
“No, sir.”
“So do I need to do anything?”
“No.”
“Then why’d you call?”
“Sweet Lemon.”
The exhaustion increased with that simple two-word declaration. My mind began to wander but my mouth stayed on point.
I took a pill from Helen Bancroft’s little bottle and popped it into my mouth.
“What did Lemon want?” I said, thinking randomly about the streets of New York and swallowing hard.
“You okay, LT?”
“Not even in a neighborhood where they know the meaning of the word.”
“Lemon says that if you’re interested you could meet him at the White Horse Tavern down in the West Village at twelve-fifteen. You know what he’s talkin’ about?”
“Yeah.”
“Lemon a problem?”
The question seemed deep and broad like a mile-wide river that separated whole cultures. Was Lemon a problem? Probably. Probably he was. But I made a living, my whole life, on problems. Time on this earth for me was navigating the Problem River, making it from side to side, connecting contradictory concepts, struggling against the wind and current, the sun, and creatures, both great and small, but all deadly.
“LT?” Luke said.
“No, Luke. Lemon’s just fine, just doin’ what he does and tryin’ not to.”
“You take care of yourself now, LT.”
I disconnected the call without answering. I knew Luke wouldn’t hold it against me.
I intended to leave right away but instead I slumped in the chair, leaning backward. My eyes closed of their own accord and something akin to sleep ensued... I was thinking about Stumpy’s horrible corpse tied to that chair, besieged by maggots and roaches. Stumpy wasn’t a brave man. Under threat he’d fold with four of a kind in his hand. But the professional gambler was cunning and aware of the lay of the land with just a glance. Whoever it was that tortured him planned to kill him anyway, Stumpy knew that. He held out because whatever it was they wanted was also the only thing keeping him alive.
And there were only two possibilities; either the men who brutalized Stumpy were looking for the money or they knew where it was and they were looking to snip loose threads. There were only two such threads that I knew of: Gert Longman, dead six years now, and me.
This realization didn’t frighten me. I wasn’t worried about becoming a feast for insects in a laundry room somewhere. Understanding that I might be the subject of concern for murderers made me wonder why — not why they were after me but why, or how, I had gotten myself into such a situation.
Why would I ever plant false evidence on a poor woman already going to jail? A woman distraught over her faithless lover and the child in her womb? I tried to remember the state of mind that allowed me to take those actions. I knew the man that did these things intimately, had all of his memories. I could enumerate each and every sin he ever committed. But try as I might I could not bring up the feeling inside that allowed me to do the things I’d done.
Of course men were after me. Of course they wanted to destroy me. Of course they did.
31
I opened my eyes, understanding that I had been in a kind of existential slumber, an intellectual doze. Rather than being in a true state of restful unconsciousness, I could only be described as a philosophical recluse. My spirit had challenged the pretexts and justifications, allowing the truth of my flawed existence to come to the surface.
I felt completely rested and free.
People wanted to kill me. They had valid reasons even if they were not aware of what those reasons were. I wanted to survive because I couldn’t make up for my sins if these shadowy men achieved their purpose.
On the street, walking south, I considered Zella. She was a textbook case of a woman who suffered a severe case of bad luck. From the man she chose to be her lover to the woman she thought of as a friend, she had chosen badly. Having a loaded gun where she could grab it was a bad idea, but the worst thing about Zella’s life was completely out of her control — me. I was bad luck, pure undiluted calamity; for Katrina, Aura, Zella Grisham, and one hundred and seven other poor souls who had been blindsided by my machinations. I was Typhoid Mary’s meaner older brother, the ire of Moses on the unsuspecting peasants of the Nile Valley. I planted false evidence, sicced the dogs on unsuspecting citizens simply because I didn’t like them and was being paid to trap someone, anyone, that would fit the bill. I was a minor, mischievous deity loosed upon naïve humanity for the entertainment of the gods.
Back in the hippie days we would have been seen as Karmic siblings, Zella and I, working out the misdeeds of previous lives. But in 2011 the metaphysical world, as well as the physical universe, was comprised almost completely by corporate plans, prayers, and plagues.