“He’s a client,” she said. “I can’t discuss him.”
“I understand,” I said. I sipped my drink, walked around the room a little. “I don’t know anything about you. Are you married? Do you have children?”
“Divorced. One child. He’s three. How about you? You work so late. Do you have children at home?”
“Two teenagers. One’s mine, one’s my lover’s. Great kids. I love them to death.” I smiled, a phony-feeling smile. “Kids are hard work, so difficult to do the right things. You want to protect them. You want them to be independent. They should know about the real world, but you don’t want to scare them about people.”
“It is hard.”
“I know one thing. I wouldn’t want a man with Charles Conklin’s record moving in next door.” I tipped my glass to her stony face, gave her a phony, us-pals laugh. “Did you hear about his career plans when he gets out? Burgess says he wants to work with children. Like a coyote works in the hen house. If I were you, I wouldn’t take your baby to the victory party, Jennifer.”
She followed with a non sequitur. “I didn’t suborn Jerry Kelsey.”
“What did you do?”
“Whatever was necessary to keep him in town-he’s a material witness. I delivered some groceries, ran some errands on his behalf, made sure no one harassed him. Especially the police.”
“Who dopes his scotch?”
She drew back. Either she was a better actress than I had thought, or she was a better lawyer; same thing. From her reaction, she didn’t know what I was talking about.
“Jerry’s scotch is laced with barbiturates,” I said. “He must have been taking downers for a long time because he has built up a powerful tolerance to them. That day Guido and I went to his house? Guido drank two scotches and slept for two days. My question is, does Jerry dope his own, or is it delivered to him that way? I know he wasn’t in the kitchen long enough to dissolve a big dose into our drinks. He was serving premix.”
She deflated. “I can’t talk to you.”
“Yes you can.” I sat down close beside her. “That’s why you came here, Jennifer, to talk to me. You looked up out of your gloom and you saw me hanging on the cross over your head and you knew I could save you. As Jesus told his transgressors, the first one among you who confesses her sins gets the big lollipop, the rest of you get the stick.”
“You’re mixing metaphors,” she groaned. “And you can’t make me say, ‘Let’s stick it to them.’”
“But that’s the idea, isn’t it? You want to defect. You want to snitch off the others and come out a hero.”
“I want to salvage my career.”
“I’ll do what I can, but I have a price.”
“Why am I not surprised?”
“I want copies of the witness affidavits. I want you to be straight with me.”
Every time the telephone rang, it made me jumpier. I listened through the beep, impatient for the caller to begin speaking. I could only half concentrate on anything else until I knew who was on the other end. The call was another hang-up.
Jennifer said, “It would be unethical for me to release confidential documents.”
The phone rang again. The machine clicked and beeped, and then I heard singing, a familiar slightly off-key baritone. “Maggie, M-M-M-Maggie, you’re the only g-g-g-girl that I adore.”
I picked it up, pathetically relieved. “Hi, big guy. What’s happening?”
“Nothin’.” Mike drew out the word. “Wanted you to know you’re the most wonderful woman in the world. I miss you. I really, really miss you.”
“Sounds like you’ve been partying. Where are you?”
“We all came up to the Shortstop to watch the news. Had a coupla beers. Did I tell you you’re the most wonderful woman I ever knew?”
“Close enough.” It was like talking to a dopey child. He was bombed. He had been drinking beer at the new house, so he had probably been relaxed when he got to the bar around four. It was now almost ten and he was relaxed to the point of sloppiness. I asked, “Are you still at the Shortstop?”
“Oh, sure. Bunch of the old guys came by, so we watched you again. Not you, but you know what I mean. Maggie, you’re…” Words seemed to fail him so he started humming.
“Is anyone there sober?” I asked.
“I’m sober,” he said, a small attempt to be huffy about the insinuation.
“More sober than you?”
“No. I’m the designated driver.”
“Great. Stay put. I’ll be there to get you as soon as I can.”
“I’ll be waiting,” he sang. “I’ll wait for you until the sun comes up if I have to. I’ll wait until hell freezes over. Maggie?”
“Yes, baby.”
“I love you, Maggie.” He seemed a little weepy.
“I love you too, baby. Just don’t go near anything with fast moving parts until I get there.”
“I would never look at another woman.”
It took a few attempts to make him say good-bye. When I hung up, I was in a hurry.
“Jennifer,” I said, “this has been fun. But I gotta go.”
“May I wait here?” she asked. “It’s so peaceful.”
“Sorry,” I said. “I wouldn’t feel comfortable.”
“I understand. I shouldn’t have asked.”
She gathered her things and waited while I wrote a note for Guido and turned out lights. As I locked the door, as a precaution in case she had ideas about spontaneous re-entry, I said, “My associate will be back in a few minutes.”
“Was that him on the phone?”
“No. That was my lover. You know my lover, don’t you?”
She seemed to search through her memory banks before committing herself. She said, “Do I?”
“Maybe not. When can I see the affidavits?”
“I’ll slip into my office now and run you copies.”
“You know the only way to save yourself is to join the winning camp.”
“I know,” she sighed.
“Have a messenger deliver the papers here, tonight. The guard up front will take care of them until I get back. Right now, I need to fetch Mike home.”
“Mike?” she said.
“My lover,” I said, and shot the bolt. I didn’t give her the rest. She should have known.
Chapter 24
The Shortstop is a bar out on Sunset Boulevard in Echo Park, just below Dodger Stadium. The owners aimed for a baseball motif, but because the police academy sits at the edge of the stadium parking lot, it is the off-duty cop crowd that has given the place its character and rowdy reputation.
There was a big crowd spilling out onto Sunset, about half of them women in short Spandex or tight jeans. Wherever there are police, there are women looking for them. Mike says the uniform is the turn-on. I say it’s availability.
The closest parking place was two blocks away. It was a crappy neighborhood by day, scary as hell by night, with or without police nearby. I locked my bag in the trunk and slipped my keys into my jeans pocket. I wished, just fleetingly, for the little automatic Mike had forced on me a few nights before. I had to settle for walking with a purpose.
I was propositioned, as a matter of form, by a young hunk who was sitting on the curb heaving into the storm drain. I thanked him for the offer and walked on.
A couple of parked cars rocked to the rhythm of backseat love, and one pair of outdoorsy lovers were going at it in the recessed doorway of a closed dry-cleaning shop. They were doing a lot of heavy-duty verbalizing that bespoke the man’s failure to give the situation a firm approach. I thought he was compensating with some creative alternatives to the old in and out, but she did not seem impressed.
The bar was smoky and dark and vibrated with a country plaint from the jukebox. I couldn’t find Mike at first. A few bobbers and weavers standing at the bar inside the door made perfunctory come-ons. I wondered if they were the appointed greeters or just the outgoing type. When I asked for Mike, I got nowhere with them.
The bartender was a big man who kept a sharp eye on things, a retired cop. I had heard that police brass and city fathers had come down hard on him a few times after noisy brawls made the Metro page in the Times. He worked hard to overcome the bar’s bad reputation. All over the paneled walls he had hung signed, framed glossies of substantial types from Tommy LaSorda to former police chief Daryl Gates.