“Does he want me to bring it all to the house?”
“No, after your visit last night ’e thought it prudent to move on out. Just bring it to me ’ere. Tomorrow, same time as this. But be certain, no police, no tails, just the materials. Them’s the terms, and the terms is rock solid.”
“I bring what he wants, then what happens?”
“When I get them and get away without any problem,” he said, climbing off his stool, “your partner walks away with nothing but a story to tell ’er kids on long winter nights and we sail off into the sunrise.”
He reached for his second pint, drained it, wiped the foam off his lip with his sleeve.
“Now be a good little servant boy and take care of this tab, won’t you, Victor?”
“You didn’t like that crack, I suppose.”
“Fancy this, Vic, it didn’t bother me none at all. See, I don’t take it personally.”
I didn’t respond. He didn’t care. He put his hands in the bulging pockets of his long black leather jacket, turned around, and headed out of the bar.
By the time I paid for the bill and left the bar, he was nowhere to be seen. I spun around in frustration on the street and as I spun my stomach fell with fear. What the hell did I expect? I went into Eddie Dean’s house, let him know what I knew, let him know I was going to take him down. How could I not have expected the bastard to fight back? If I had talked it over with Beth first, she would have stopped me, she would have applied her cool calculation and found a better path. But now those paths were closed to me. Beth. Beth. What to do about Beth? It was too late to count on Telushkin and his FBI to handle it. Colfax had stated the terms with utter clarity, unless I could come up with a better plan I would have to come through. Somehow I would have to get that bastard what he wanted. And I knew how to start.
I took the yellow sheet out of my pocket, the one Dante’s boy had given me, called the number written there. It rang for a moment, and then came the voice, a woman’s voice, secretarial, the one with the high gray hair.
“Pennsylvania Supreme Court,” she said. “Justice Straczynski’s chambers. How can I help you?”
Chapter 64
HE WALKED UP the path with a slow, awkward gait, his head swiveling guiltily, his blue suit bunched around his hunched shoulders. It was Rittenhouse Square in the middle of a fine spring afternoon and the park was lousy with pretty girls and slackers and office workers taking in some sun and shoppers with their bags, resting before another bout of rabid acquisition. It was crowded, loud, urban – a perfect place for an anonymous meeting. Across the park, on the southwest corner, stood Eddie Dean’s rented and now-deserted mansion, a touch that gave me a nice ironic jolt even if as yet it meant nothing to the man in the suit cautiously making his way to my bench. When the man spotted me, his head recoiled as if from some stark fulsome scent. I seem to get that a lot, but not often from a Supreme Court justice.
“Well?” he said, standing before me.
He was bent forward, his high forehead glistening with sweat, his thin blond hair disheveled, his fists balled with anxiety. I was leaning back on the bench, my arms spread leisurely on either side.
“Sit,” I said.
“I don’t have much time.”
“Yes, you do,” I said. “You have all day. Sit.”
He sat at my command like a lapdog.
The hardest thing was getting him on the line. When I gave my name to the secretary she patched me right through to the vigilant and violent Clerk Lobban. No, said Curtis Lobban, the justice was not available. Why don’t you tell me, said Curtis Lobban, the purpose of the call? Of course, said Curtis Lobban, whatever you say I will relay to the justice word for word. No, said Curtis Lobban, it is not possible for you to speak to him right now. There was again an ominous note in his voice that raised the hair on the back of my neck. This was not simply a gatekeeper, this Curtis Lobban, shuffling files and appointments, beating up trespassers, doing the bidding of a sitting jurist, this was something else, something fearsomely protective. I wasn’t getting through, he wasn’t letting me through, and I didn’t quite know what to do until a voice broke into our conversation.
“I will speak to Mr. Carl,” said the justice, harshly.
“Yes, sir,” said Curtis Lobban.
“We need to meet,” I said.
“When,” said the justice.
“Now.”
“That is impossible,” said Curtis Lobban, still on the line. “There are appointments.”
“Hang up the phone, Curtis,” said the justice, “and cancel my appointments.”
And now here he was, Jackson Straczynski, standing before me, fidgeting and wincing as if preparing to be beaten about the head. And now sitting down next to me, leaning forward, elbows on his knees, wringing his long pale hands as if he were auditioning for a role.
“I want to apologize, Mr. Carl,” he said, speaking as if it were a struggle to get the words out. “After your last visit, I made the inquiries I told you I would make. Everything you said turned out to be true, and I am appalled.”
“But of course you knew.”
“No.”
“About my being locked up at Traffic Court? About Rashard Porter.”
“No, I did not.”
“It was your doing. It had to be.”
“But it wasn’t.”
“Then who could-”
I stopped in midsentence and thought it through. The secretive Clerk O’Brien in Traffic Court. The dour Clerk Templeton in Common Pleas Court. The fearsomely protective Clerk Lobban in the justice’s own chambers.
“Son of a bitch.”
“I fear,” said the justice, “that one of my employees might have acted to safeguard my position well beyond his actual authority.”
“A conspiracy of clerks.”
“Clerk Lobban’s loyalties run very deep, deeper than in a normal employee-employer relationship. He knows my wife, in fact it is she who hired him for me. His wife is ill and my wife helps in her care. It is very complicated.”
“I can imagine.”
“No,” he said. “No, you can’t.”
“What kind of car does your clerk drive?”
“Something small, I think. Foreign.”
“ Toyota?”
“I suppose.”
“Color?”
“I don’t know. Look, I have spoken to Judge Wellman. He denied any pressure was brought to bear, but I have reason to believe a motion to vacate Mr. Porter’s sentence would be well received.”
“What about Lonnie?”
“I read about Mr. Chambers in the newspaper. Very distressing, and I know what you must think. But I never told Curtis anything about him. Our prior conversation remained absolutely private.”
“And Joey Parma?”
“Who?”
“Joseph Parma. He called you a number of times.”
“No. You must be mistaken. I never heard of Joseph Parma.”
“He was a friend of your brother’s.”
“Benny?”
“Yes. An old friend.”
“Benny did have a friend named Joey when he was younger. They were altar boys together. I think they called him Joey Cheaps.”
“Bingo.”
“But why was he trying to call me?”
“Because Joey was an idiot. And he had done something twenty years ago for your brother. And he thought he could turn what he did twenty years ago into cash today.”
“And that was the client you were referring to, who had his throat slit.”
“That’s right.”
“Mr. Carl. Oh God. Mr. Carl. I think I am going to be sick.”
Chapter 65
“IF IT HAD been anyone else but Tommy,” said Jackson Straczynski, still leaning forward on the bench, his stomach still riled, “I might have handled it differently. That’s not an excuse. I have no excuse. But it may be an explanation. Have you ever had a friend to whom you feel very close and yet with whom you can’t help but compete over every available scrap? That was the way it was with me and Tommy Greeley.
“I met him on the fencing team. I had thought fencing might be something interesting to learn, a good aristocratic sport. Yes, that was how I thought about things then, anything to wipe the South Philly out of me. Which is funny, when you think of it, because all the while I was working on my parries and feints and lunges with the purpose of rising in class, my younger brother, Benjamin, was building an entirely different reputation with a blade of his own. Tommy was new to the sport too, but from the first he dominated me on the piste, forcing me to break ground, scoring off me at will. And his smile, that little victorious smirk when he ripped off his mask, would eat like an acid at my bones.