Rosato and Associates: Legal Tender Part 20

My face felt hot, and I hadn't even told him about my wardrobe renaissance. "How'd you keep this up, Sam?"

"What?"

"The sham, the whole thing."

"I can't keep a secret? 'Deduce You Say!' 195-"

"Enough with the cartoons," I said, impatient with his rap. "No more Looney Tunes. I don't want to hear one more quotation out of that mouth. Got it?"

"What?" He blinked, incredulous. "You want me to quit, cold turkey?"

"You heard me."

"I can't do it, doc. I was born this way. It's genetic, not a choice."

"You were explaining how you could have a whole secret life."

"It's nothing new for me, Bennie, I get lots of practice. I'm gay, remember? How do you think I keep that s.h.i.t afloat? I have my partners believing I screw anything with a pulse. I'm the envy of the Policy Committee."

"So it's brilliant lawyer by day, drug addict by night?"

He stroked Jamie 17. "That's a naive question. You don't contain heroin that way. Only in the beginning, then it starts containing you. It sneaks up on you, especially stuff this good. No, I'm a junkie full time. It's a tough job, but somebody has to do it."

I was silent, waiting. He wanted to tell me something, unburden himself, I could feel it. Maybe his confession would be to murder.

"I've fixed in my office, in the parking garage, in the men's room, even in the bathroom at bankruptcy court. I've gotten out of more meetings to boot than I can count."

"'Boot'?"

"Shoot up."

"How could they not know?"

"I'd say I have to make a call. What lawyer doesn't have to make a call? s.h.i.t, when I was in the bathroom, I really would use the time, call either a connection or a client. I'd have a cell phone to my ear and a needle in my arm."

"It must be a nightmare, Sam," I said, hurt for him.

"It is. But you know what's funny? I need another hit, right now, and I'd do anything- give, sell anything-for it."

"Don't say that. Heroin kills." I was thinking of Bill.

"But it's true, Bennie. If I had my car back, I'd be up there in a minute. Let 'em beat the s.h.i.t out of me, but after I fix. Only after."

"Is that why Mark gave you the money, the cash I saw in his checkbook?"

"Yes."

"Did you tell him why?"

"Of course not. I told him I was making investments for him. Some stock tips I got from a rich client. I told him I could double his money."

"You conned him out of it? One of your oldest friends?"

Sam looked away, and neither of us said anything for a moment. Neither had to.

"Sam," I asked, breaking the silence, "do you think Mark knew you were an addict, even though you didn't tell him?"

"I'm not an addict, I'm chemically challenged."

"Stop joking around. Mark made you his executor, so I would guess he didn't know. What do you think?"

Sam looked chastened. "He made the will about three years ago, and I was fairly clean at the time. He could have suspected, but he never said anything. I fooled you, didn't I, and you were always smarter than he was. Always."

I took a deep breath. "Sam, did you kill Bill Kleeb, that kid I represented? The animal activist?"

"What? No!"

"I found him dead of a heroin overdose. You didn't have anything to do with that?"

"No, of course not. What is this? I didn't kill anybody. I never would. The only violence I like is cartoon. Where you get blown up and show up in the next frame, with a Band-Aid, crisscrossed." He made a tiny x with his index fingers. "Like a patch on a flat tire."

"But the balloons on your desk, what are they for?"

"Honestly? I use them to tie off."

"You mean your arm?"

He rolled his eyes. "No, my d.i.c.k. Of course I mean my arm. And don't look at me like that. I know somebody who shoots up there to hide his tracks. He's a doctor."

"Bill's arm was tied with a pink balloon when I found him."

"So?" Then it dawned on him. "That's why you think I did it?" He laughed, but it came out like a huff of stale air and disturbed Jamie 17. "I'm not the only junkie who uses balloons for other than their intended purpose."

"Is that common, to use a balloon?"

"Anything that works is common." He put a slim finger to his temple. "Let's see, I've used a belt, a rubber band, a leather shoelace. Even an Hermes tie. The one with the jugglers."

"But it was just like the balloons on your desk. The same color."

"You can buy them in Woolworth's! You should see the sleazoids buying those balloons. None of them are making giraffes with them, believe me. I had nothing to do with any death."

"But you were angry at Bill for protesting the AIDS vaccine."

"I didn't even know the kid! I wouldn't kill him for that! I'd have to kill every Republican in sight."

Still. My stomach was tense. "Where were you two nights ago?"

"Where I am every night. Getting high with Ramon, my little Speedy Gonzales."

"Really?"

" 'Here Today, Gone Tamale.' 195-Oh, who cares?"

"Sam-"

"I mean it. I'm telling the truth."

I looked at him, near collapse in the saggy middle of the couch. "Sam, did you kill Mark? For the fees?"

"No, Bennie, I told you I didn't, that day in my office!"

"You also told me you didn't need the money, and you're a drug addict."

"That doesn't mean I'm guilty of every murder in the city!" He leaned forward urgently, seeming to summon all the strength in his body. "You don't get it, Bennie. If you're hooked, you need money now. This second, this instant. I don't need money a year from now or whenever Mark's will gets probated."

"What about the time you'd bill, the income from that?"

"Too late. I need cash, cash, cash, cash, all the time. You don't invoice for dope money, chica."

"With the trustee's fee, every year-"

"I'm in no shape to manage a trust! I can't even manage my own life!" His eyes glistened. "I didn't kill Mark. I swear to G.o.d."

I considered it. Was Sam lying or wasn't he? He looked like he was in pain. He'd been my friend as long as I could remember. I couldn't be sure, but I felt that I could trust him, for the moment. At least draw on his expertise to help figure out what had happened to Bill. So I told him the whole story, about how there were no tracks on Bill's arm, and what Mrs. Zoeller had said. When it was over, I asked him what he thought.

"It sounds like a setup to me," he said. "Though I'll tell you this-the last person to believe you're a junkie is your mother."

"Or your best friend."

He looked sad. "I really am sorry, Bennie. I never wanted to get you in trouble."

"Does your mother know?"

"You think I want to kill her? She knows I'm gay, that's enough."

I thought of Sam's lifestyle, a gay man, maybe even sharing needles, exchanging high-risk blood. "From the looks of it, I think it's yourself you want to kill."

Sam's anguished eyes found mine, and he didn't disagree.

Later, I bundled him into his bed, now a bare mattress with one of the most exclusive views in the city, overlooking Rittenhouse Square. Where the night table had been were pizza crusts, overflowing ashtrays, and other trash.

I set about cleaning the place while Sam fell into an exhausted sleep. Jamie 17 kept me company and I went from room to room sweeping and vacuuming, just as I had cleaned my own apartment after the cops searched it. I'd gone from relentless slob to white tornado in a matter of days and hated every minute of it.

As the night wore on and Sam woke up, the singing turned to persuading, then pleading, then yelling. I hugged him, ordered him food, and threw him into the mildewed shower as Jamie 17 scampered out of sight. Anything to get him through the night. I made him throw out all the drug paraphernalia from his hiding places; an array of b.l.o.o.d.y needles, spoons, and stuff he called his "works." I turned the place upside down, with him screaming at me, crying, begging me to stop. But I didn't listen and he finally gave in.

I lost track of time and at some point I called a drug hotline as Sam raved in the background. They walked me through it-sweats, shakes, and nausea-from wherever they were to wherever I was. At the other end of the phone line was a kind, knowing soul who stayed with me and Sam through the darkness, asking nothing but to help.

By the time dawn came around, Sam had slipped into the soundest sleep I'd ever seen, sounder than Jamie 17's at his feet, right through two calls from Ramon. The waiter's third call sounded panicky and it was clear it wasn't love he wanted. I hung up the phone.

When dawn finally broke, I rose from my spot on the hardwood floor and stretched, looking out the window over the Square. Every muscle in my body ached, but the scene was beautiful, Sunday morning quiet. The streetlights were still on around the Square, glowing dimly in the hazy gray morning. The green wooden benches were empty, even of the homeless. To my left twinkled downtown Philly, but the Silver Bullet seemed far away, draped in the mist. On the right were the cla.s.sy rowhouses south of the Square and the backstreet that used to be ours, at R & B. I thought of Mark, then Grady.

Grady. I wondered how he was. I looked at the phone, off the hook on the floor beside Sam and Jamie 17. It was a chance, but I wanted to talk to him. A fugitive needs her lawyer, doesn't she? The dawn I left him was exactly like this one. How many days ago was that? The truth was, I missed him. I picked up the phone and dialed him at home.

"Wells residence," breathed a woman's voice, in a soft whisper.

It took me aback. I squeezed the receiver in my hand. His old girlfriend? Another woman?

"h.e.l.lo?" said the woman. I could barely hear her.

Good-bye, I thought, and hung up.

Chapter 28.

Sunday morning dawned and I spent it taking care of Sam, who cried, slept, showered, and babbled a Foghorn Leghorn cartoon in a continuous loop. I'd wanted to read the newspapers to track what the cops were saying about me, but the news agency had long ago stopped delivering to Sam's condo, their bills unpaid. I tried not to think about Grady, which wasn't hard since my hands were full with Sam, who swore he wanted to get clean.

"For real?" I asked, making him a slice of toast, the only food I could find in the apartment.

"I'm ready to kick. This is it."

"You're halfway there, Sam."

"I'm no longer a duck amuck. That's 1953, by the way."

"Stop with the cartoons." I put the toast on a freshly washed plate and set it in front of him as he rested on his elbow at the counter. "I told you."

"Okay, okay." Sam waved me off with a trembling hand. His eyes were bloodshot behind his gla.s.ses, his skin a saffron hue, and his frame almost anorexic now that he was out of his tailored suits. "I thought you liked the 'toons, Ben. Why are you so cranky all of a sudden?"

"I decided you're using cartoons as a facade. You hide behind your humor, you don't want to face reality. I saw it on Sally Jessy."

He rolled his eyes. "Did Ramon call?"

"Forget about Ramon. He's a bad influence on you."

"Of course he is, that's what I like about him. So did he call?"

"It doesn't matter. I'm not letting you play with him anymore."

"You taking over my care and feeding?"

"Bingo."

"I hope you'll do better with me than with Jamie 17. She's too skinny." His eyes followed the cat as she walked back and forth on the floor, rubbing against his stool at the kitchen counter.