“By the way, I got a message for you,” said my father.
I grew suddenly nervous. “From Mrs. Kalakos?”
“No, from that Joey Pride. He wants to talk. He said he’ll pick you up tomorrow morning same time outside your apartment house.”
“He can’t. Call him and tell him he can’t.”
“Tell him yourself. I don’t call him, he calls me.”
“Dad, I’m being followed all the time. I think they followed me to Ralph. And they’re looking for Joey, too. If he picks me up outside my apartment, they’re going to find him.”
“Tough for Joey.”
“Dad.”
“If he calls, I’ll tell him.”
“This is bad.”
“For Joey maybe.”
“Your sympathy for those guys is overwhelming.”
“They were punks,” he said. “Always were, always will be. If they was involved with that robbery, like you said, then they stepped out of their league, and now they’re paying for it. That’s always the way of it. You got to know your limitations.”
“Like your mother.”
“Yeah, that’s right. You know, after she came back like she did, she threw out all her paintings. Never touched a brush again.”
“Were the paintings any good?”
“Nah. But she sure was happy painting them.”
42
I got to the office early the next morning, fiddled with some paperwork, made some phone calls. Then I headed off to City Hall.
Philadelphia’s City Hall is a grand monstrosity of a building set smack in the very center of William Penn’s plan for the city. Four and a half acres of masonry in the ornate style of the French Second Empire, the building is bigger than any other city hall in the country, but that doesn’t say enough. It is bigger than the United States Capitol. The granite walls on the bottom floor are twenty-two feet thick, the bronze of Billy Penn is the tallest statue atop any building in the world. You want to get an idea of the size of the thing? About ten years ago, they removed thirty-seven tons of pigeon droppings from its roofs and statuary. Seventy-four thousand pounds. Think on that for a moment. That’s a load of guano, even for a building designed for politicians. If you can’t get lost in Philadelphia’s City Hall, you’re not trying very hard.
I entered the doors at the southwest quadrant, climbed the wide granite steps to the second floor, where I headed toward the prothonotary’s office. Prothonotary is our local term for clerk, like cheese steak is our local term for health food and councilman is our local term for crook. I ducked in, looked around, ducked out again, spotted no one suspicious in the hallway. I proceeded to make a grand tour of the building, starting with the mayor’s office. A cop was stationed at the door, to keep the FBI from sneaking inside and bugging it again, no doubt. I took an elevator to the fourth floor and walked past the Marriage License Bureau and the Orphans’ Court, two locales still thankfully foreign to me. I climbed down another huge stairwell to the third floor, walked past City Council offices, felt my sense of morality disappearing into some strange vortex. At the elevator I looked around and went back down to the second floor.
The cop in front of the mayor’s office eyed me as I passed by. “You looking for something, pal?” he said.
“Yeah,” I said, “but fortunately I’m not finding it.”
I entered another of the wide stairwells and climbed down to the ground floor again. I was now at the northeast corner of the building, the exact opposite of where I had entered. I slipped out of the building and quickly raised my hand.
A battered old Yellow Cab with its top light off pulled up beside me. I opened the door and slid inside. The cab veered around a few lanes and then headed north on Broad.
“I expect there’s a reason for all this subterfuge and flimflam,” said Joey Pride from behind the wheel.
“Just trying to keep the body count down,” I said.
“Whose body you talking about?”
“Yours.”
“Well, then, boy, flimflam away. And at least you sent me a messenger easy on the eyes.”
“Yes, I did,” I said, smiling at Monica Adair sitting beside me on the backseat, her hair back in a ponytail, her face freshly scrubbed. While I was staying busy at my office, I had sent Monica to intercept Joey in front of my apartment and direct him to our rendezvous. I hadn’t been able to spot who was following me – I was no Phil Skink, who could spy the tail of a mouse at fifty yards – but after what happened with Charlie at Ocean City, I had begun to take precautions.
“So, Joey,” I said, “you wanted to see me?”
“Your boy’s trying to screw my ass,” said Joey Pride, “and I just wanted you to tell him it’s not worthy of our past together.”
“Do I have any idea what you are talking about?”
“Maybe we ought to drop her off before we keep talking.”
“Oh, Monica’s fine,” I said. “Anything I can hear, she can hear, too. Her profession is all about secrets.”
“Okay, then. Remember that fish we was discussing before Ralph got it in the head, the one handing out the Benjamins?”
Lavender Hill. Damn. “Yes, I remember.”
“He got hold of me once again. Said he was close to working out a deal with Chuckles the Clown, and that Chuckles, out of the generosity of his shriveled Greek heart, had decided what my share will be when the deal goes down.”
“And what share is that?”
“Well, he figured, since there was five of us in that long-ago escapade, that I should get a fifth.”
“That makes some sense.”
“Did thirty years ago, don’t make that kind of sense now. Ralph is dead, Teddy has been missing since the painting was took, and considering what he ended up with, he don’t deserve nothing more, and Hugo ain’t going to be begging for his share, I can tell you that.”
“What does that mean?”
“It don’t matter. What matters is that, the way I see it, the split should be fifty-fifty.”
“Fine, but leave me out. I can’t be part of any negotiation.”
“You part of it already, Victor. You the one who set this up.”
“You don’t know that.”
“No other way it could have played out, so don’t pretend you’re wearing a white suit here and glowing like an angel. You get back to our boy and tell him it’s fifty-fifty or there will be trouble.”
“What kind of trouble, Joey?”
“He’s still got a mother and sister, don’t he? They still got a house, don’t they? It ain’t smart business to trifle with a desperate man on the run from ghosts.”
“Did you hear that, Monica?”
“I heard that.”
“That is a threat, which is absolutely against the law. As an officer of the court, I have a duty to report any crimes I see.”
“I have a cell phone,” she said.
“You ain’t making no call.”
“I don’t need to,” I said. “Let me give you a piece of advice, Joey. Don’t mess with Mrs. Kalakos. She’ll carve you proper and then make soup from your bones.”
He thought about it for a while, driving north on Broad, toward her territory and his past. “She’s old.”
“Not old enough. Your concern about the shares is duly noted and, all the time remembering my responsibilities, I’ll see what I can do to make your grievance understood.”
“Am I going to get any more than that lame assurance from your skinny ass?”
“No.”
“Then I guess it will have to do.”
“Good. Now I have some questions for you.” I leaned forward, took a photograph out of my pocket, shoved it in front of him. As he drove, he glanced down at it, looked up, glanced down again.
The taxi swerved left, a horn honked, the taxi swerved right again.
“Mind your own damn lane,” Joey yelled out the window.
“You recognize her?” I said.
“No.”
“So says your words, but the steering wheel gave you away.”
“Take another look,” said Monica. “Please.”