“Well, you’ve done your job.”
“You actually saw him die?” Brillstein simply couldn’t resist. He fired the question across at Max.
“No.” Max sat pat, enjoying this role as witness.
“Did you see his body after the crash?”
“Yes,” Max answered. And offered nothing more.
Brillstein sighed, beset by the world and yet willing, after all, to lend a helping hand. “Let me give you one bit of advice for when you speak with your lawyer. I’m sure he’ll ask, but just in case he doesn’t, you should emphasize that you saw your partner’s dead body with your own eyes. And, if by any chance you remember later that actually you did see him being killed, I would suggest you, uh, not, well not to be crude about it, but make that very clear. Also, if Mr. Gordon did not die instantly, if there was any conversation, any indication that he was in pain, or suffered, details like that, you’d be surprised how significant they might be for both Mrs. Gordon and yourself.” Brillstein skimmed the Volvo across two lanes of bumps, heading for what was supposed to be Westway. Instead, because of environmental disputes, the city’s lack of money and coherent vision, there was a simple open roadway, curiously more functional and beautiful than any of the grand designs that had been proposed. Although he cut in front of a car, Brillstein removed a hand from the wheel to warn Max, “Don’t say anything now. Just think about what happened. Sometimes, in terrible accidents, people don’t immediately remember everything that happened.”
Brillstein’s maneuver off the highway onto the extension had put the Volvo on an apparent collision course with the concrete divider that separated the road from the river. Max in particular, given his position in the death seat, felt he was being rushed right at the wall. Even when the lawyer returned his free hand to the wheel, he still did not drive straight. His car continued toward the wall. Max waited for the impact with mild curiosity. His body was relaxed. Brillstein had a plan, however, jerking the car away at the last moment and steering onto a crosshatched section of pavement, clearly marked not to be used, so that he could pass a line of cars stuck behind a white van that was attempting an illegal left turn. New York was a riot of lawlessness, Max thought, and laughed.
“Something funny?” Brillstein said with a pounce in his tone, a hunter’s alacrity.
“You want me to make things up about the crash so that I can get more money.”
Brillstein wasn’t offended. He didn’t even seem to react. He was behind a taxi that he must have felt wasn’t going fast enough. He glanced to his left, hopped to that lane only barely ahead of another car (its driver honked a complaint), sped past the cab, and hopped back in front of it. Max noticed the driver as they superseded him. The cabbie was a dark hairy man with bloodshot eyes; he stared at them with loathing. “To be honest with you, Mr. Klein, I wasn’t thinking about you at all. I was thinking about Mrs. Gordon, who, although I don’t know her well, I know doesn’t come from a rich family, and is now a widow with two young children in an expensive city, full of single women her age and with very few men who want to marry them.”
“You’re telling me that if I testify—”
Brillstein shook his head vigorously. He was well suited to be a parent: his expressions were as exaggerated as a puppet’s. He denied Max’s comment with the rapidity and strength a dog uses to shake himself dry. “I doubt that it’ll ever get to court. It’s very rare for airline cases to go to court. This’ll be settled.” The lawyer nodded up and down, again in a dumb-show manner, going farther up and farther down than people normally do. He continued to make this marionette’s movement as he elaborated: “But yes,” nodding down and then nodding up, “if you say in a deposition that Mr. Gordon suffered,” nodding down, “that he knew he was dying,” nodding up fast and then down slow, “that he was anxious as to the fate of his wife and children, of course that could influence the settlement.” The puppet was done. He cocked his head and waited cheerfully for an answer.
Max pressed the button for the electric window. It squealed in agony at first, but then hummed down quietly the rest of the way.
“I’ve got the air-conditioning on,” Brillstein complained.
The summer-baked smells of urine and food covered Max’s face as if he had put on a mask, along with a vague pungent odor of the ocean, and also a hint of fire, of something always burning in the city, acrid and angry. He didn’t mind the rotting sea or spoiled food or human wastes — he minded the fire. Its smell had been in the DC-10; this new burning mixed with some left over in his nostrils. He wanted to scream. So he did.
Brillstein was shocked. He twisted the wheel and shouted, “Hey!” The Volvo bounced across the road, onto a graveled area marked off by cones, presumably for work being done along the riverside. Their wheels crunched on the pebbles and the car went into a skid. As they twisted and slid sideways, Max enjoyed his view. The summer night had finished its gradual progress to darkness. The river came closer, veiled by a chain-link fence. The city’s lights glowed on the water, painting long tails on the black river. Max had grown up next to a magnificent body of water that he had never touched and could never know. He waited willingly for Brillstein’s car to crash through the barrier and submerge him into the Hudson’s dark and restless flow.
They were out of control only briefly. The tires squealed as Brillstein remastered his car. The Volvo slid easily into the fence, like a baseball player pursing a foul ball with gentle recklessness. When they came to a stop, Brillstein shouted: “What’s wrong!”
“I don’t want to tell any lies,” Max said.
Brillstein released air. “Okay. Next time just say no. I’m a nudge, but I’m not deaf.”
Max and Brillstein stared at each other for a moment and then Max laughed. Brillstein grinned back, a toothless and tight look. His eyes were still nervous, but he tried to appear friendly. “What’s your problem?” Max asked. “Why are you in a total rage?”
“A what?”
“You’re in a total rage. You drive like you want everybody on this road dead.”
“Are you okay?” the lawyer countered. “I mean, you were in a horrible crash. No settlement hype. For real — you’ve been through hell. Are you all right? I’ve got Valium in the glove compartment.” Brillstein leaned over and released the door. Maps slid out, a flashlight rolled onto the floor. Left in the compartment was a hypodermic filled with liquid and several bottles of pills.
Max laughed again. “It’s a pharmacy!” he announced and laughed harder.
“Are you kidding? My wife has us fully stocked. Carsick? Dramamine. Nervous? Valium. Allergic to beestings? Here’s a shot of epinephrine. Got a kidney stone? Here’s Percodan for you.”
“The way you drive I’m surprised she’s still functioning.”
“I like to go fast.”
“Why?” Max demanded, surveying Brillstein as he replaced the fallen flashlight and maps in the glove compartment. The lawyer was a medium man, average height, his hair dark but not black, his eyes small but not beady, his hair thinning but not gone, his skin pale but not white. He looked dull and typical. Certainly no thrill seeker.