He sat down while I told him-about everything but the memo. It helped, getting it out. But the memo stuck in my throat. So, somehow, did the phone call. Perhaps in daylight it seemed childish. Anyhow, I held it back.
Robinson was weighing it all. “So you think Lasko killed Lehman?” he asked.
“Yeah.”
He nodded. “It makes some sense.”
The grimness of the thing filled the room, as if Robinson had confirmed Lehman’s death. Robinson felt it too. He fished awkwardly for something to divert me. “You know,” he said finally, “there’s only so much you can do by yourself.”
“How do you mean?”
He leaned back with the air of a man telling a parable. “A few years ago, I had a secretary who’d always fall asleep at her typewriter with her nose running. One day I took a good look at her arm. Needle tracks all over. So I tried to have her canned. She found out and filed a complaint with the Equal Employment Opportunity counselor, claiming I was a racist.”
“What happened?”
“I got my ass chewed by personnel, and had a talk with some pompous shit about my latent racism. The upshot was that I was ordered to have weekly counseling sessions with my secretary, to help her along. They lasted three weeks. The fourth week I couldn’t take it any more. I recommended her for a promotion. She’s now supervising a typing pool of thirty girls, between naps.”
I shook my head. “The point is,” he added, “that it goes with the territory.”
The story seemed to have some vague but depressing relation to my work, perhaps even to Lehman. Robinson’s acceptance bothered me. I tried to think of something constructive.
“The Boston office served the subpoena for Lasko’s financial stuff on Wednesday. Think you can get them to air express those down today?”
“Some of them.”
“Let’s look at them this weekend. There has to be something else going on that ties in with all this.”
“I’ll do it,” he said crisply. “Anything else?”
My mind was still on the memo. “You do know we’re meeting with Lasko at 3:30?”
His eyes looked puzzled through the thick glasses. “So I hear. I can’t say I like the rules.”
“It wasn’t my idea, Jim.”
He nodded. “I had guessed that. Did you talk with McGuire?”
“We had words about it,” I said dryly. “I had my second almost-firing this week.”
Robinson’s bemused look returned and focused on his fingernails. “Ever wonder why he doesn’t can you?”
“Yep. My answer is that it’s too much trouble to boot me in the middle of this.”
“Then the question you should ask is why he put you on this one in the first place. Anyone else would have been less trouble.”
It was as if he had sniffed out my suspicions and was conducting a veiled debate. With me and with himself. I wanted to tell him about McGuire and Lasko’s lawyer. And about the memo. But that would put Robinson in the middle, between McGuire and me. He didn’t want to be there.
“I’ll think on it, Jim. And I appreciate your help.” I felt as if I were closing out his friendship, selling him short. But he didn’t need my problems, and I couldn’t make him hold out on McGuire. I let him go.
I got up and closed the door after him. Then I pulled the manila envelope out of the attache case. Lehman’s memo. I fingered it, wondering if the absurd scrawling could somehow kill me too. I stared for a long time. Then I opened up my desk drawer and looked in. The bottom of the drawer was two layers of metal. I took my letter opener, jammed it between the layers at the front of the drawer and pried. It lifted minutely, making a crack between the two layers. I pulled it back out, and took the memo out of the envelope. I copied the cryptic words on a note pad, ripped it off, and stuffed it in my wallet. I replaced the memo in its envelope. Then I re-pried the layers with the opener. I took the envelope in my left hand and tried to slide it between the layers. It fit. I slowly shoved it all the way in.
I thought for a while. It was a turning point, I knew. I could hide it, or give it up and try to walk away. But I had probably come too far the first time I read it. I closed the drawer and locked it.
I leaned back in my chair and waited for William Lasko.
Fourteen
I picked up Robinson about 3:20 and went to the conference room. It was done in bargain chic: a cheap wooden table and Swedish modern chairs, covered in yellow, maximum life three years. There were glass windows on two sides, covered by cheap orange burlap curtains. A green plastic schefflera, in a pot, completed the room.
We sat in the disposable chairs, joking uneasily about the decor and waiting because Lasko had the suck to make us wait and knew it. Robinson’s bemused look had turned glum. My defensiveness was mixed with fear; I thought I was meeting Lehman’s murderer, the man behind the quiet voice on my telephone, the author of the memo hidden in my desk. It was a new experience. I gazed absently at the curtain, trying to rehearse my plan.
I looked at my watch. It was 3:40. Lasko was making a point. It was effective. Each second measured itself out, separately. Robinson’s forefinger made invisible grooves on his notepad. I caught myself tapping the table with my pen, Gene Krupa style.
The phone rang. The downstairs guard told me that Lasko had arrived, with his lawyer. I said to send them up to the conference room, third floor. We waited. Then the door cracked open.
Lasko’s pictures hadn’t prepared me. He filled the doorway, at least six-four, two-thirty, and giving a sudden impact of darkness and controlled force. He entered and strode around the conference table, smiling broadly, with the air of a man securing a beachhead. He got close, where he could look down at me, and administered a bone-crunching handshake.
“I’m William Lasko.” His eyes riveted mine, gauging my reaction.
I tried not to have any. “How are you, Mr. Lasko. I’m Christopher Paget.”
He stared a second longer, then turned to Robinson, repeating the ritual. He had a Southwestern look: high color, fleshy face, and black eyes, hard and intelligent. I gestured at the table. Lasko appropriated a chair with a decisive grasp and sat down. He had a kind of self-conscious presence, as if he were watching himself in the mirror, approvingly. It was oddly impressive. I felt puny, aware of my unimportance.
It was then that I noticed Catlow. He was standing in the background, the perfect self-effacing counselor. The contrast with Lasko was striking. Catlow was slight, sandy-haired, and sallow as a Dead Sea scroll. He introduced himself in a dry, thin voice and parceled out a fleeting handshake. His liveliest feature was the sharp, careful grey eyes. Unobtrusiveness was Catlow’s business. I looked back at Lasko. He was black-haired, with a blunt nose and a thick full mouth. Obscurity wouldn’t suit him.
We all sat, Robinson to my right, the other two to my left. Lasko leaned over the table, as if it were something he had bought. They stared at me, waiting as I considered how to start.
The phone rang. I picked it up. An overseas operator rasped at me, asking for Lasko. I handed it to him. His baritone voice was rich with satisfaction. “I’ve got some acquisitions in the fire. I can’t get away-people always needing to talk.” He spoke into the phone. “Leo. Where are you? Japan? What the hell time is it over there? Yes, I’m with the ECC. What’s up?” Lasko was conducting both sides of the conversation, for my benefit. I wondered how poor Leo liked getting up at midnight to call the boss.
Lasko kept talking to Leo, watching me. I watched back to keep him happy. “Yeah, OK. Thirty-five a ton? That’s a holdup.” His eyes followed me jealously, demanding my attention. “Listen, Leo, that’s bullshit. You ask that Jap where else he’s going to get coal like that for his crappy little island. Then take a walk. In two weeks he’ll be crawling.” I got the message: Lasko was a very important man. That was his way of relating to people. What was important was to be important. Lasko needed importance like a junkie needs smack. And Lehman had somehow threatened the supply.