“I’ve got to get to court.”
“Slow down. You hate to keep Gimbel waiting, sure. But nothing will screw his calendar like the automatic mistrial because you turn up dead. So tell me who might possibly want to kill Victor Carl.”
“They should be taking tickets. Now serving number twenty-six.”
“What about your pal Raffaello?”
I shook my head. “The one guy with no reason, yet,” I said, though he might just decide there was reason enough if I didn’t find out where his money went. “Besides,” I continued, “I asked him about the first shot. He said if he wanted me dead I would have been dead. But Jimmy Moore, I think, would like me to disappear.”
“I don’t doubt it, with the way you went after him yesterday.”
I lit up for a second. “You liked that?”
“Not bad.”
“And then there’s Norvel Goodwin.”
Slocum let out a low whistle. “See, I knew something was up when you started asking about him.”
“He took me for a ride, told me he had an interest in this case and to back off. When I didn’t he left a dachshund with his neck snapped and his belly split on my doorstep.”
“He seems to have a thing for dead animals. Something from his childhood, I guess. But what interest could he have in this case?”
I shrugged.
“Anyone else might want to take a shot at you?” he asked.
“Well, my ex-partner and I are feuding. He’s a murderous fuck.”
“Ex-partners are like that.”
“And of course I owe some money to MasterCard.”
“They can be brutal, I know.”
“I have to get to court.”
“Sure you do,” he said. “I’ll tell the unit to stick around while you put on a clean suit. You have a clean suit, I hope.”
“I never needed more than one before.”
“They’ll escort you to the courthouse. If you need them again on your way home, let me know. I’ll take care of it.”
I nodded at him.
“But before you go,” he said. “I’ve been assigned to the Chuckie Lamb killing. You know anything about that?”
“No,” I said, “not a thing.”
“Because there’s something peculiar. I was listening to the 911 tape and the guy who called the murder in, he sounded a lot like you.”
“Strange coincidence,” I said.
“And a witness spotted a man in a raincoat, about your height and build, running out of Washington Square just before the call.”
“Looks like you got your work cut out for you.”
“You’d tell me if you knew anything, wouldn’t you, Victor?”
“If I knew anything you’d be the first I’d tell,” I said. “After the trial.”
He sat in the car next to me, shaking his head. “And I’m supposed to wait and see if you live that long.” He shook his head some more and then ducked out of the car. He leaned back into the open doorway. “So, Carl, you’ve called a city councilman a liar in court, you’ve made an enemy of the biggest drug kingpin in the city and a friend of the biggest mobster, you’ve had your picture in all the papers, you’ve been interviewed like a sports star on the evening news, you are hiding information about a homicide, and now you’ve been shot at twice. How does it feel to hit the big time?”
He didn’t wait for an answer. He just laughed and shut the door and strolled over to the cops, who were doing what cops do best, standing in a group and talking about where to eat lunch. But I had an answer for him, I could have told him how it felt. Just then, with blood on my shirt and a chilling nausea riding up my throat, just then it felt surprisingly good. The closest I had ever been to the big time before was watching the parade go by when the Phillies won it all in 1980. Well, I wasn’t watching it all go by this time, I was right in the middle of it, maybe getting run over by it, true, but in the middle of it nonetheless, and what I was discovering was that that was just the way I liked it.
When the trial resumed, after gratuitous and insincere inquiries into my well-being, and after I had pulled my notebook and my legal pads and my Federal Criminal Code and Rules from my briefcase, each with a neat round hole through it, Eggert took his turn going after Jimmy. Eggert was very careful in his cross-examination, very deliberate. Bit by bit he went over the story, trying to mold it as much as possible to be consistent with his theory that the extortion and arson and murder were all linked together. It was a very precise, very workmanlike cross. And it was excruciatingly boring.
During one of the many breaks called by the judge to let the yawning jury walk off its drowsiness, I took a stroll down the long courthouse hallway. On my way back I was stopped by Leslie Moore. She was standing with her sister, Renee, but when she saw me she put a hand on Renee’s shoulder and came over. Renee stayed about ten feet away, thick arms crossed over her chest, eyeing us suspiciously.
“Oh, Mr. Carl,” said Leslie. Her voice was sad and soft, the breathless voice of condolence as one passes through the line greeting the family at a funeral. She was wearing a fine tweed suit, her silk shirt buttoned at the collar, and in the way her arms were held tight to her side and her hands clutched at each other there was something of the shackled prisoner about her. “I was so sorry to hear about what happened this morning.”
“Thank you,” I said.
“Do you think you are in danger, for real?”
“I’m being careful where I step,” I said.
“After what happened to Charles we are all very shaken.”
I looked at her carefully, wondering how much she knew. Was there guilt in her eyes? It was Chuckie himself who had told me her problem was that she knew too much, that she knew everything. “It was a tragedy,” I said.
She leaned forward slightly and lifted her arm, placing two fingers very close to the array of bandages around my eye, as close as she could come without touching. There was something so genuine about her concern it was startling, as if she herself had sliced my flesh with a fine-bladed knife.
“Be very careful, Mr. Carl. Please,” she said. “There’s been enough tragedy in too short a time.” Was that a warning or a threat? I couldn’t tell. “And how is your eye?” she asked.
“It’s all right,” I said. “Don’t worry about it, Mrs. Moore.”
“I am a nurse, you know. I don’t practice with patients anymore, but I used to. Maybe I should look at the wound.”
“No, that won’t be necessary,” I said quickly. “Why did you stop practicing?”
“There is enough money now,” she said, smiling tightly. “Besides, after Nadine I lost the heart for it. I lost the heart for everything.”
“I’m sorry,” I said, and immediately felt silly for saying it, as if my offhand words could in any way fill the void.
She looked at her sister, creased her brow, and, without turning back to me, she said, “I want you to know that I don’t resent the way you brought out in the courtroom my husband’s relationship with that woman.”
“I’m only doing what I believe I have to do, Mrs. Moore.”
“I know. And I don’t resent what Chester is doing, either. Tell him, please.”
“He’ll be glad to know,” I said.
“We’ve all been protecting Jimmy for so long that it has become a habit. Like brushing our teeth or going to church. That’s why I can even admire Chester fighting back like he is.” She breathed a deep, sad breath. “Though I am paying part of the cost. My husband is a remarkable man, Mr. Carl, but he is not without flaws. And it is impossible to know how hard these last few years have been on both of us. Nadine was a very bright and lively child. She wrote poetry for her high school literary magazine. She was very special.”
I stopped myself from apologizing again and stayed quiet. There was something she wanted to say and I could see her struggling with it.
She turned to me and took a step forward and put her hand on my forearm. “You do believe him, don’t you, when he says it is over with her?”