Hostile Witness Part 9

"Take my card, Victor," said Simon, reaching into his inside pocket. "Ring us up tomorrow."

"I will," I said.

"Have you received the doc.u.ments?" asked Prescott.

"Yes, sir," I said. He had sent me over six boxes of doc.u.ments released by the government and copied for me by Talbott, Kittredge and Chase, six boxes at twenty-five cents a page, all billed to CUP. I was overwhelmed by the quant.i.ty of it. "Thank you."

"If you need anything else, let me know. Anything at all."

"I will, sir."

"So that is how it's done," said Beth after we had swung away from the trio. The jazz band was playing "Begin the Beguine," an older couple started dancing in the open area in front of the stairs. They must have been names because, as if on cue, other couples crowded past us to start dancing alongside them. A tray of tiny egg roll squares swept through, but as I reached for them I was stymied by a broad tuxedo back and then the tray was gone.

"That's how what is done?" I asked.

"Networking. I had heard about it but I never saw the real thing until tonight. You're surprisingly good at it."

"Just trying to build up the practice. You see any more of those egg roll things?"

"Yes, sir, no, sir, anything you want, sir. But you shouldn't kiss Prescott's b.u.t.t so intently, Victor. It can leave stains on your ears."

"It doesn't help," I said, "when you start accusing his partners of cross-dressing."

"Your friend Prescott's a snake. I wouldn't trust him for a second. I looked him up in Martindale-Hubbell. Did you know he worked for Nixon?"

"A lot of fine people worked for Nixon."

"Ehrlichman," she said. "Haldeman, Mitch.e.l.l, Dean, Kissinger."

"Kissinger never went to jail. Oh, Nixon wasn't so bad. Take away Watergate and Vietnam and he was a pretty good president. Pretty d.a.m.n good."

"Victor," she shouted loud enough to get the attention of a group nearby.

I tried to shush her quiet.

"Listen to yourself," she said. "Don't turn into a wh.o.r.e, Victor, just because some Republican gave you a case."

"At fifty bucks an hour you're a wh.o.r.e," I said. "At two-fifty an hour you're a success."

From out of one of the galleries and into the foyer came first a clatter of noise and shouts and then the surge of a crowd of tuxedos and gowns and sprayed hair. At the front, marching forward with his back arched and head high, was Jimmy Moore. Behind him was an entourage, grown larger by the event, a gaggle of followers following gladly. Jimmy's tuxedo was tight around his barrel chest and thick shoulders. He was laughing, eyes bright, shaking hands as he pa.s.sed the partyers, talking a bit here, talking a bit there, shaking hands with the vigor of a politician on the campaign trail, which I guess is what he was.

"Victor Carl, Victor Carl," he said when he reached me, grabbing my hand and shaking it with the enthusiasm of a Kennedy. "Terrific of you to join us. Terrific."

"I wouldn't have missed it, sir."

The crowd behind him seemed to flow around us until we were in the center of a very large group.

"Quite the turnout, wouldn't you say, Victor. Funding for our youth home on Lehigh Avenue is just about completed. We'll be able to start construction as planned, thanks to these good people. You'll be generous, I'm sure, Victor. Lawyers are always so generous when it comes to the needy," he said with a wink.

"It's good to see you again, Mrs. Moore," I said.

Leslie Moore was by her husband's side, clutching a small purse in one hand and a gla.s.s of champagne in the other. The tendons in her long neck were as taut as suspension wires. Her sister, Renee, held tightly to her arm as if to keep her standing. "Thank you, Victor," said Leslie in her soft voice, barely discernable above the blatting of the crowd. "We're both so grateful you could come."

"This is my partner, Elizabeth Derringer," I said.

"Good to see you, young lady," said the councilman. "Yes. Always grand to see another lawyer for the cause."

"And what cause is that?" asked Beth.

"Why, giving kids a second chance," said Jimmy with a huge smile. "Raising up the disadvantaged, healing the sick. Righteousness."

"Since when did City Council ever care about righteousness," said Beth, taking a sip of her drink. "I thought all it cared about was parking s.p.a.ces."

As Jimmy and Beth were talking I saw Chester Concannon walk by the group, looking unusually sharp in his evening clothes. He held onto the arm of a tall young woman whom I didn't recognize until she turned her head to look at me. It was Veronica. I raised a finger to say h.e.l.lo, but she acted as if she didn't remember me. They were a handsome couple, Chester and Veronica. After they pa.s.sed I looked back at Jimmy and Leslie. Jimmy was concentrating on Beth, his eyes never wavering, but Leslie followed the handsome couple as they walked the length of the wide hall. There was something fierce and strained in her face as she watched them, something serpentine.

"But if you'll excuse me, Victor," said Jimmy, interrupting my spying. "It's time for the obligatory speech. It was a distinct pleasure, Ms. Derringer."

"Good luck, Councilman," she said.

"Where would I be if I depended on luck?" he said. "Keep up the good work, Victor."

And then the crowd surged past us, like we were two stones in the middle of a mighty river. The band stopped playing. Jimmy climbed four of the steps, hopped onto one of the great granite blocks that rose on either side of the stairway, and turned around. Magically the foyer quieted. Jimmy gave his speech.

I had heard it all before.

I was at the bar, waiting on a Sea Breeze for me and a beer for Beth, when I heard a familiar voice behind me. "You're missing the speech, Vic." I turned around. Chuckie Lamb was grinning at me with those fish lips, his scraggly hair brushing the shoulders of a rather ragged tuxedo.

"It's the same old c.r.a.p," I said.

"Yes, I know," said Chuckie. "I wrote it. Bourbon," he barked at the bartender and then turned back to me. "You got yourself a nice gig here, Vic, lawyering for Chester. Big bucks, invitations to the nicest parties, a chance to wear a rented tux."

"Yes, it is nice," I said.

"Who'd you blow for all this? Prescott?"

"Did we go to school together, Chuckie?" I asked him. "Did I beat you up at recess or something and you still hold the grudge, is that it? Because otherwise I don't understand why you despise me so."

"Don't tell me you're one of those jellyfish who just want to be liked."

"Isn't everyone?"

"Not everyone. But you want to know why, Vic? All right. Because my instinct tells me you'd sell your mother for a hundred bucks. Is my instinct right?"

"Actually, yes," I said, turning back to the bar to pick up my drinks. "But then you don't know my mother. In any event, what's any of it to you? I don't see your name on an indictment."

"Yeah, well, I got lucky." He reached over my shoulder for his drink. "And so did you. But I'm naturally lucky. Are you naturally lucky, Vic?" He raised the bourbon up as if he were toasting me and then swallowed half the drink in one swallow. "You better hope so."

I blinked twice as I watched him go.

I handed Beth her beer and together we wandered through the open galleries. It was a treat to have the museum to ourselves, and even though there were plenty of people, that it was a private party made it feel like we had the museum to ourselves. We were drifting in the museum's Impressionist gallery, paintings by Renoir, Degas, paintings by Mary Ca.s.satt, who had been born in Pennsylvania but had been clever enough to leave. Then we pa.s.sed from the nineteenth to the twentieth century. Shadowy figures from Jasper Johns, a collage in flames by Rauschenberg. I paused at a stark painting of a grand and empty courtyard, slashing shadows, a bare statue, repet.i.tive arches, and in the background just the top of a train belching smoke into the empty air. There was a terrifying emptiness about the painting, a palpable sense of loss.

"Giorgio de Chirico," said Beth, reading from the little plaque on the wall.

"It should be called 'My Life,'" I said.

"Now what do you know about de Chirico's life?" asked Beth.

"Who's talking about de Chirico?"

"Well, look who's over there," said Beth.

I turned to see a tall thin woman in silk pants, leaning back, hips thrust forward like a model's. She was strikingly beautiful, blue eyes, straight narrow nose. Her black hair swept out with the unnatural wings of a television anchorwoman. She was with a tall, gray-haired man who looked perfectly natural in his expensive tuxedo and who was not her husband. I knew that because I knew her husband, I hated her husband terribly, and never before had I seen the gray-haired man who now put his arm over her shoulders and brushed the top of her head with his lips.

"Let's get out of here," I said softly.

"Don't you think we should say h.e.l.lo?"

"Let's go. Please."

"Oh, Lauren," said Beth in a high-pitched call, loud enough for the woman to hear. She turned, and her eyes brightened into a smile. With her adulterous friend in tow she came to us, leading with her hips, walking across the room as if it were a runway at a Paris opening. She reached out her arm to me, wrist c.o.c.ked down. Two thick gold bracelets, stamped with runes and encrusted with diamonds, slid bangling down on her thin forearm. "Why, Victor," said Lauren Amber Guthrie, wife of my ex-partner Guthrie. "I'm surprised to see you here. You don't usually come to these sorts of affairs."

"h.e.l.lo, Lauren," I said.

"Beth dear," said Lauren in her soft breathy voice. "What a cute little dress."

"You know, Lauren," said Beth, "I've been looking but I haven't seen Guthrie here tonight."

"I don't think he's coming," said Lauren. "I'm here with Rodolpho. Rodolpho dear, meet two dear friends, Victor and Elizabeth."

"Charmed," said the gray-haired man in a voice twisted by a strong Italian accent. "I justa love this..." He gestured to all the paintings, struggled to find the right word, and then shrugged. "This," he said.

"Don't give up on the tapes," said Beth. "They take time."

"Rodolpho is in silk," said Lauren. "He comes from Como."

"Como, Texas?" asked Beth.

"Italia. I'm from Italia."

"She knows, dear," said Lauren. "She is just being funny."

"Ah, yes. Now I see." He laughed deeply and falsely.

"Where's Guthrie tonight, Lauren?" I asked.

"I really don't know."

"Don't you think you should know where your husband is?"

"Unwatched husbands sometimes stray," said Beth.

"How would you know, dear?" said Lauren.

"Husband?" said Rodolpho.

"He's hardly ever violent," I said. "Except when he becomes jealous."

"Husband? Do I know about this husband?"

"I could use another champagne, Rodolpho," said Lauren. "Be a dear?"

"Of course. But we musta talk about this husband, yes?"

"Tonight, yes. Now hurry," she said, her breathy voice turning breathless. "I'm so very thirsty."

We watched Rodolpho as he walked with mincing European steps out of the gallery on his way to the bar.

"I met him at a reception at the Italian consulate," said Lauren. "You'd be surprised how many Italians are in Philadelphia, it's like a glorious, sophisticated subculture in the midst of the Philistines."

"That you have made it your mission to entertain," said Beth.

"Be nice, dear, and I'll introduce you to it."

"Don't you think you should be more discreet in your infidelity?" I asked.

"I have been, Victor. I've been the soul of discretion. But things have changed."

"You'll introduce me?" asked Beth.

Lauren looked Beth up and down, examining her closely. I expected her to stick a finger in Beth's mouth to check her teeth. "There's a serious young man, Alberto." She rolled the "r" in Alberto. "An architect working with Venturi. Dirt poor but very handsome. Give me your number, dear, and I'll pa.s.s it on."

"How have things changed?" I asked.

"We're separated, Victor. I moved out. Well, really Sam moved out, but I would have been the one to leave if my father hadn't bought the house for us."

"I'm sorry to hear that," I lied. "How's Guthrie taking it?"

"Not well, I'm afraid."

"That's too bad," I said, fighting the smile.

Beth was rifling through her small red handbag.

"And Victor," said Lauren. "You know that crack about the jealous husband, it was not so far off."

"Guthrie?"

"He can be brutal. Violent. An absolute beast. I should have known from the first. Anyone who sweats as much as he."