I looked Arnold up in the phone book and called him. I wanted to connect. I felt strange, not having talked to him after all those years, then, in one evening and a night and an early morning, we had talked and argued and broken into a couple of apartments and stolen some possibly incriminating video tapes. It seemed like every day business. Very comfortable. Maybe we could start robbing filling stations.
He answered on the fifth ring.
“I was out feedin’ the dog,” he said. “What’s up?”
I told him what Bev had said about the way we had obtained evidence.
“Well, Bubba-son, Beverly’s thinking on her feet, but in this case she’s wrong. You see, cop gets information like that, it’s suspicious, but someone ain’t a law officer breaks and enters, gets information and turns it over to the police, then it can be used in court. ’Course, you got to face the breaking and entering charge.”
“How do we get around that?”
“I’m not sure we do. My suggestion is we leave Billy out of it. He’s in deep enough doo-doo as it is. But you and me, we could take the rap, or I could.”
“No, you don’t.”
“Glad you said that. I wasn’t going to do it. I was just being melodramatic. I won’t let you take it either.”
“Never planned on it. In fact, I’d rather neither of us took it.”
“Maybe we ought to pin it on Billy after all,” Arnold said.
“Ha. Ha. Isn’t there a way around all this?”
“Might be. How well you know this lawyer?”
“He woulft"0em" wdn’t suck poison out of my balls I got snake bit there, but I know him well enough. He’s a good lawyer, I can say for sure. Well connected. Something of an opportunist. He’s won some high-powered cases.”
“Then lend an ear,” Arnold said. “There might be a way around our problem. A lawyer can call up the powers that be, say, ‘Hey, I got some evidence comes to me from a client, but I can’t say who ’cause the client is a thief. He was breaking and entering and panicked cause he heard a night watchman, grabbed what he could. A couple of video tapes.’”
“Sure,” I said. “I was a burglar, I’d have to have a couple of random video cassettes before I broke and ran.”
“Say a burglar got home and watched the tapes, thought they looked kind of funny. Thought there might be something really big going on. And though the guy’s a thief, he doesn’t want any part of something like this. So he calls the lawyer and turns the cassettes in, but stays anonymous.”
“So I tell Virgil I’m a thief?”
“No. But he might play the game some, he thinks it’s important.”
“There’s nothing on either of those tapes means much unless you’ve got the background on them. A burglar couldn’t see those and suspect much of anything.”
“Hell, I don’t know, Bubba. I’m talking off the top here. Thing to do is jam with your lawyer, feel him out before you show him your etchings. Know what I mean?”
“I suppose,” I said. “Something else I want to tell you. I don’t know why, but I want to.”
“Shoot.”
“I love you. I’ve always loved you. Been driving by your place for years. Stopping and looking but never going up to the door. I realize now, the pain I’ve felt all that time wasn’t anger or betrayal. It was loss.”
“I know,” Arnold said.
17
I decided I’d go in and talk to the lawyer alone. I called Bill at the motel, explained my position and told him to hang tight.
I called Griffith’s office. His secretary connected me to him.
“Hey, que pasa, buddy?” Virgil said. “It’s been some kind of time. How’s the ole tallywhacker swinging?”
“It isn’t swinging all that good, actually.”
“Yeah? Then this isn’t just a touch base with a friend call?”
“No. It’s business.”
“Bad business?”
“Pretty bad business. Not directly my business, but close enough.”
“In other words, if life ain’t fucked enough, you got friends and family to help out?”
“Good guess.”
“That’s the way it us
“I’d like to come in and talk to you about my problem. I don’t think I want to talk to you about it over the phone.”
“Sure. But you can’t right now. I’m heading out. Told my partner and everyone here I got business to attend to, but what I got to do is go home and get a beer. It’s been one of those days already. I want to put my feet up and watch some ignorance on TV. What you got wait until tomorrow?”
I thought that over. I could go to another lawyer, but I felt Virgil was the man I preferred to deal with. We could cut through all the legal shit and get right down to it. On the other hand, a day’s delay might make a big difference.
“It’s pretty important,” I said.
“Well, hell, if it’s important, we’ll do ’er. Why don’t you come out to the house though. We can tell some lies about all the women we’ve had and how there isn’t anyone we can’t whip.”
He gave me the address and I drove over there.
It was a pretty nice part of town and Virgil’s house was large, if plain looking, with a slightly yellowed lawn decorated with a chipped, stone duck on which someone, probably Virgil, had drawn in black marker, a pair of glasses.
I rang the bell.
The glass panel on one side of the door had been knocked out and patched with cardboard and masking tape. I was examining it when the door opened and Virgil smiled at me. He had gotten bigger, way we all had. His blond hair had thinned considerably and was cut short. He had a slightly blushed complexion, highlighted by his orange sports shirt and yellow tie. He was in his briefs and was barefoot. He and Fat Boy could have modeled together.
“Get your ass on in here,” he said. “I was just slipping into something more comfortable. Sit the hell down and I’ll finish and get us a beer.”
“I’ll skip the beer,” I said.
“Suit yourself.”
He disappeared into a back room and I sat down on the couch. The place looked as if it could legally qualify as a disaster area. Newspaper strewn from one end to the other, dirty paper plates all over the coffee table, a greasy paper sack overflowing with beer cans. There was a smeared reddish stain on the wall over the TV, and something dark, small and round was stuck in the middle of the stain. I got up for a better look and had to peel a sticky paper plate off my shoe. I dropped it on the floor, went over and examined the wall.
I was pretty certain it was pepperoni.
Virgil came in. He was wearing a pair of blue and white Bermuda shorts and a white T-shirt with Kill All Lawyers written on it in black.
“Nice shirt,” I said.
He used both hands to pinch the shirt away from his chest, held it a moment, then let it go. “Stenciled that on there myself. That’s pizza on the wall, by the way.”
“I thought I recognized a pepperoni. How are the other rooms decorat romyself. ed? Cheese and sausage?”
“Wife threw that at me.”
“Carolyn, isn’t it?”
“That was number one. I’m on the fourth. This was Meg. Came home last week and she was banging my law partner. They broke a couple slats on the bed.”
“Uh-oh.”
“I tugged him out of the bed and shoved two dollars at him and told him to buy himself a good piece of ass, then kicked his butt down the hall and threw him into that panel by the door and bounced him around the room some. Sonofabitch took out of here naked. Had him a spare key under the bumper of his car, I reckon, ’cause he drove off not wearing a goddamn stitch.”
“That’s rough, Virgil.”
“Yeah, guess we’ll get a divorce. I’m in the right business for it, aren’t I? I can lawyer the hell out of a divorce… Hell, that isn’t why you’re here, is it?”
“No.”
“Wouldn’t think about getting a divorce would you?”
“No.”
“Change your mind, I’m your man. Sure you don’t want a beer?”
“No thanks.”
I sat back on the couch and Virgil disappeared into the kitchen and came back with a beer. He sat down in a gouged leather recliner and kicked his feet up.