Hostile Witness Part 14

"I'm an easy guy to get along with," said Costello. "But I hate being taken and those b.a.s.t.a.r.ds took me."

"You and Morris will get them," said Lefkowitz.

"That's right," said Costello. "Pound a stake through their f.u.c.king hearts."

16.

I WAS WALKING SALTZ through our small reception area, feeling almost desperate about having to wait for my cut of the settlement, when I saw Veronica sitting on the Naugahyde couch by the door. She was wearing her short black dress with dark stockings and black high heels. Her legs were crossed in a way that was hard not to notice. When Saltz saw her he stopped walking and stared.

"Veronica," I said. "This is a surprise."

"Your receptionist told me I could wait here. Is she always so unpleasant?"

"Unpleasantness is Rita's special talent," I said. "Give me a minute."

I dragged Saltz out of the office. He didn't seem to want to talk about the case anymore. "Is she a friend of yours?"

"A client of sorts. She has a landlord problem."

"If she needs a doctor," said Saltz, "give her my name."

"She's a little young for a cardiologist," I said.

"I'm versatile," said Saltz. He leaned backwards to peer through the windowed door. From where we were standing we could only see her long stockinged legs. "Besides," he said, tapping me on the chest, "that girl's a walking heart attack."

"So, Veronica," I said when I came back into the office. "Another critter turn up dead on your doorstep?"

She was fiddling around in her little black purse. "I was just in your part of town and I thought we could have a drink together."

"I have too much work."

"When can you get free?" she asked.

"December."

She placed her feet beneath her and stood up gracefully. "I'm supposed to meet Jimmy for dinner tonight at eight. Let's have a drink beforehand."

"I can't," I said. "I have too much work. There's the trial and..."

She placed her hand on my arm. "I have two hours free. It's so sad when I am forced to drink alone."

"Then don't drink. Go to a bookstore. Catch a movie."

"But it's happy hour, Victor."

"I really can't."

"Of course you can. Didn't you have fun last night?"

"Yes," I said, and I did.

Despite the overt threat of that limousine parked on Church Street, I had let Veronica take me to the Society Hill Bar and Grill, where we drank c.o.c.ktails and listened to the bearded piano player and talked about nothing and laughed and talked some more and were both ever so clever. There was something about Veronica, a certain carelessness maybe, that brought forth a depraved charm I didn't know existed within me, and I liked it. I had always seen myself as a social cluck, dull witted, slow, my conversation frozen with indecision during blind dates or c.o.c.ktail parties. But sitting at the bar with Veronica, being raked with the gazes of the other men there, all wondering what a jerk like me was doing with someone like her, feeding off her sweet perverseness, my self-confidence blossomed. I was something more than I had ever been. I told stories and she laughed. I kept up my end of a sparkling conversation. I was Henry James, I was James Bond, I was a raconteur.

"Do you have another engagement this evening?" she asked. "A date?" Her pretty lips twisted into a smirk as she stood before me.

"No," I said. "That's not it."

"Well then," she said. "Let's go. Carolina's is just up the street."

I hesitated for a moment. I was weakening and she could see it. She moved a step closer and lifted her face up to mine and then the phone rang.

I pulled away, turned my back on her, and answered it. "Derringer and Carl."

"What are you doing asking questions about a corpse?" said the familiar, high barking voice on the phone. "You're forgetting your role."

"Screw you," I said to Chuckie Lamb, suddenly defensive about my visit to Sloc.u.m and examination of the murder evidence, all contrary to my client's firm instructions. "I'm just doing my job."

"Your job is not to sneak into the DA's office and plot. Your job is to sit quietly and shut up. That's what they're paying you to do."

"I know what my job is," I said. "What I don't know is why you are so p.i.s.sed off that I'm doing it. Although I have my suspicions."

"Oh, you're a brain all right, Vic," he said. "You keep looking and you might find something you don't want to find, something that could get you hurt."

"So that's the way it is," I said. "What this call is all about." I tried to sound hard but I could feel the flutter of fear rise along my spine. I had never been threatened before, not like that, not by someone like Chuckie Lamb, who I had no doubt could turn murderous if he wanted to, who maybe already had.

"I just think you should know exactly what you're getting into, Vic."

"You're doing me a public service, is that it?"

"Now you got it."

"Give me one reason I should listen to you and be afraid."

"I'll give you a quarter of a million reasons, you small-time loser."

I turned around suddenly. Veronica was standing by the far wall, looking at a print of some flowers, but it wasn't a very interesting print. Vimhoff had bought it for fifteen bucks, framed, and I doubted if it grabbed all of Veronica's attention. Did she know who I was talking to? I didn't want her to know, didn't want her to have anything to do with my role in this case. I lowered my voice. I knew there was a $250,000 discrepancy between the funds claimed to be given to Concannon by Ruffing and the funds apparently received by CUP, though until that moment I hadn't focused on it. But Chuckie had made a slip, had inadvertently let me know that it was important.

"So where are they?" I asked, still looking at the pretty curve of Veronica's back. "All those reasons."

"Lay off and you'll live longer," said Chuckie Lamb.

"So it is a threat, isn't it?" My hand started to shake and I couldn't stop it. I grabbed the receiver with the other hand. That helped, but not much. "It's been a pleasure, but I can't talk anymore now," I said. "There's someone here."

"Someone I might know?"

"None of your business."

"Someone involved with the case?"

"Not really."

"Long legs, thin hips, the face of a spoiled child?"

Just that instant Veronica turned around and looked at me. "Yes, actually," I said. "That's it exactly."

"Then you are as good as wasted already," he said.

"Anything interesting?" asked Veronica after Chuckie had hung up and I held the telephone in a still shaking hand.

"No," I said, putting the phone down slowly. "It was nothing. Just another debt collector."

"Oh, the terrible strain," she said. "I can see it on you. You simply must come with me for a drink. To calm your nerves." It was not a question, it was a statement of fact, and before I could convince myself that I really ought to refuse she said, "Besides, Jimmy wants you to join us for dinner and he insisted I don't accept no for an answer."

Carolina's is one of those places where suits congregate after office hours to pretend their lives are worthy of a beer commercial. There's a restaurant that serves squab and monkfish and asparagus bundles tied with a yellow silk ribbon, but the real action is off to the side, where women with flat bellies go to have their drinks bought for them by Italian suits standing three layers deep at the bar. Guthrie and I used to go to Carolina's when we were still partners and still friends and we'd laugh at the scene, even as we scanned for a pair of willing eyes. Guthrie is a handsome dog, broad and swarthy, and he'd usually end up leaning over something comely, laying on his saccharine charm as I clutched my beer, my back against the wall, watching. If there was a friend he'd call me over, but that never worked because after Guthrie had his choice the friend was generally not much worth it or, if she was, she'd have her eye on Guthrie. I always a.s.sociated Carolina's with failure, so I hated everything about the place, the too expensive drinks, the blank white walls, the forced expressions of self-satisfaction that were worn there like a uniform. But I must admit, it felt different to be there with a beautiful woman who laughed at my jokes and leaned close as she whispered her confidences.

"My jaw is too heavy," she said, rubbing the back of her fingers along her jawbone. "It's like the jaw of a wrestler."

"You're being silly," I said. "Do you want another drink?"

"Of course. No, it's not silly. I have a jaw like that giant wrestler, what was his name, Alex or something."

I waved for the bartender. "Andre the Giant?"

"Yes. I have a jaw like his."

"No you don't. Your jaw is beautiful."

"You're sweet to lie for me. Here, feel it." She took my hand and placed my palm upon her jawline. Her hand was cool and dry, her cheek smooth. My thumb rested in the hollow beneath her chin. She held my hand there for moment. "That's why the modeling didn't work. That and my legs."

"Now you're being very silly. Another Sea Breeze and Absolut martini," I said to the bartender, who nodded at me while he stared at Veronica.

"We have to go soon," she said. "After this drink. We're meeting them at a place on Tenth Street. A private room. It's all very serious."

"What does Jimmy want to see me for?"

"Chet will be there," she said. "Chet's always there. And I think your friend Prescott."

"And Chuckie too, I a.s.sume."

"No, not Chuckie. He's off visiting his mother."

"His mother, huh? He doesn't seem the type."

"Oh, he's always off visiting his mother. But I think they want to talk about the trial anyway and, as far as the trial goes, Chuckie's out of the loop." Now that was interesting. So Chuckie wasn't threatening me on behalf of Chester or the councilman. He wasn't authorized to make the call, he was freelancing, threatening me only on behalf of Chuckie.

"How can you drink that?" she said, pointing to the bright purple Sea Breeze in the highball gla.s.s the bartender placed in front of me.

"It tastes like summer. Besides, if I started drinking martinis I'd collapse before I could step out of this place."

"Cheers," she said, lifting her clear martini gla.s.s and downing a swallow. "Some nights I need a start on the champagne."

"Victor Carl, Victor Carl," said a loud nasal voice that I recognized immediately. "Looking very sharp indeed." I felt something in the pit of my stomach the moment I heard that voice. Its owner was a tall, handsome man with short black hair, greased and combed straight back. Athletic shoulders filled his olive-green suit. He had a smarta.s.s smile and a bright yellow tie and he slapped me hard on the back as if I were a fraternity buddy.

"Guthrie, you b.a.s.t.a.r.d," I said to my ex-partner as flatly as I could manage.

"Looking good, Vic," he said. I really didn't like being called Vic and I especially didn't like being called Vic by him. "First I see you popping up on the nightly news and now in Carolina's with the most beautiful woman in Philadelphia." He turned his smarta.s.s smile on Veronica. "You're coming up in the world, I must say."

"I'm a.s.sociating with a better cla.s.s of people now," I said, looking at him very carefully, trying to see the violence Lauren said was in him.

"Since Vic has forgotten his manners," he said to Veronica, "let me introduce myself. I'm Guthrie. Samuel Guthrie."

"And I'm interested," said Veronica, ignoring his outstretched hand. "Not interested."

"Oooh. Very tart."

"Watch it," I said.

"No offense meant. How's business, Vic? You busy?"

"Busy as h.e.l.l," I said. For some reason lawyers always ask each other if they are busy and the response is always that they are busy as h.e.l.l, even if they're not. "Funny, things seemed to pick up just after you left."

"Well, that's grand," he said. "I told you my leaving was the best for all of us. How's Lizzie? That biological clock of hers still ticking?"

"Beth's just fine, she's a champ," I said, suddenly angry. "By the way, we ran into your wife the night before last at the Art Museum."

The smarta.s.s smile fled like a roach when the kitchen light is switched on. It cheered me to see it disappear. "I couldn't make it," he said. "I've been mondo busy at Blaine, c.o.x. And it's not just the quant.i.ty of the work that's so amazing, Vic, it's also the quality."

"She said you were separated," I went on, not taking the seque he offered me about his new firm, preferring to let him squirm.

"What did she do? Sit you down and tell you all her problems? Be sure to charge her the two hundred bucks. Every shrink in the city already has."

"She seemed pretty happy to my untrained eye," I said.

"It's a mask. Just the other day she said she pined for me."

"So you're getting back together then?" I asked.

"When I'm ready. I think I'll let her hang for a bit. I'm enjoying being on my own again." He gave Veronica a patented Guthrie smile, all confidence and innuendo, but this night it seemed a bit wan. "Listen, Vic, I've been meaning to talk to you. Can we get together sometime?"

"For you I'm booked until the millennium."

"I'll have Carolyn get in touch with Ellie and set something up."