Break and Enter (34 page)

THE HOSPITAL’S VISITING HOURS ENDED
at five o’clock, so he couldn’t see his mother again. But he retrieved his car from the parking garage and headed toward his parents’ house. Maybe he could eat a meal with his father, talk some. He pressed the gas, angry again suddenly, angry as usual. How obsequious he had been with Mastrude. What the situation needed was
control,
not half-assedly swinging a flashlight around the caverns of the psyche! The way he’d been letting Hoskins push him around made him sick. He, Peter, should be eating guys like Hoskins for lunch! Control! Clap and the world freezes, waiting for the next command. Why didn’t he have it? Just wrap your fingers around whatever it was and hold it and know you
had
it. He wanted Janice back, and he wanted to control her emotions so that she would be fucking happy and satisfied for once. He really wanted to control the fact that she had a shitty childhood—yes, he’d
really
like to rewrite history and get all the bugs out of her development so that she would come out happy and perfect like he wanted her to. He’d like to control good old John Big Dick Apple, too, maybe show him who the hell was boss. What would have happened if Cassandra hadn’t been in his bed? Had he missed by so little, missed another forty years of life with the woman he loved because he let someone use his house key?

There was no car in his parents’ driveway. He opened the front door with his own key and had just stepped into the living room when the phone rang. He answered the closer phone in his father’s den. It was Bobby.

“You’re home? I was sitting here and thought I’d call and check how Mom is.”

“Dad’s out. I just walked in. You know about Mom.”

“Dad said not to worry.”

“Well, don’t,” Peter said, hoping to calm his brother.

“Carol was examined by another obstetrician. She’s right on the weight-gain curve.”

“That’s great, Bobby.”

“I’m scared of only one thing.”

“Birth defects?”

“No. Yeah, well, of course I’m scared of that, too.”

“What’s scaring you, then?”

“Seeing her in such pain. I hear that no matter what kind of crap you learn in the childbirthing class, it’s still a lot of screaming and crying and—”

The line changed hands.

“Don’t listen to this,” came Carol’s sweet voice, laughing. “The pain will be a
pleasure.
I’ve waited years for this.”

“God, I hope so, Carol.”

“How’s Janice?”

“I never see her anymore.”

“Poor
Peter.
You’ve always been so dependent on Janice.” Her laughter tinkled in the phone again and he understood again why his brother found Carol so attractive. “Tell her I said for her to come home and give you a back rub.”

“Okay,” he whispered.

“Here’s Bobby.”

“So everything’s okay back east? Everybody’s okay?”

“Don’t worry, Bobby. Just think about the baby.”

He hung up and settled back into his father’s armchair, hating himself for lying to his brother, knowing it couldn’t be any other way. He would rather lie than be shamed. The chair smelled of his father. How many times had he watched his father hunch over his desk writing out figures in pencil on legal pads? Now the papers and bills seemed discouragingly familiar; he was gaining on his father, reducing the distance between them, knowing now what it was like to write out check after check each month for years at a time, watching the bank statements, keeping medical records in order, a Rolodex of phone numbers, stock newsletters, insurance forms, loan agreements, pension reports, credit-card bills,
useless warranties for household appliances, stacks of canceled checks in case the IRS descended. He pulled out his father’s middle drawer: keys, stamps, pens, a few letters, paper clips, a broken garage door opener, a faded matchbook, random family photographs. These papers once enclosed a mystery about his father, proved he served as the intermediary between the real world and the insular space of family.

He noticed his parents’ checkbook and idly picked it from the papers on the desk. He flipped to the beginning of the register and noted a series of repetitive entries for gas, food, insurance, and so on. His mother wrote nearly all the checks, and yet each week his father would total the balance, which usually fluctuated around three thousand dollars. Each entry was flagged at the end of the month, as his father compared their record against the bank’s. It had been this way for years, a steady harmony, literally a system of checks and balances that promoted trust and stability.

He flipped further and saw Janice’s name.

There it was, written matter-of-factly in his mother’s handwriting. A check for ten thousand dollars, written four days prior. A deposit of the same amount was written in next, indicating that monies had been deposited into the account for this very purpose, probably from a savings account. The date corresponded perfectly with Janice’s decision to be independent of his income. He flipped through every page of the register and found no more record of payments to Janice. The pattern of entries—simple numbers, simple words—was reestablished as if nothing had happened and all was normal, not as if his parents were helping their daughter-in-law leave their son, betraying him as he had never been betrayed before.

He retreated, perhaps from shock, into the cold analysis that had stood him in such good stead and which had destroyed so much of his life. He would have to consider the motivations of three individuals in their decision to individually and collectively deceive someone they loved. He assumed Janice and his mother had communicated. Janice, out of pride and a sense of what was right, would not call his mother. His mother had asked about Janice repeatedly and then, as was her character, decided to contact her independently, perhaps calling her at the women’s shelter during the day. Janice would not ask for money, but she would be frank with his mother. His mother would never probe him for
details of his separation, in respect for his privacy. If Janice had decided to leave him, then his mother would assume, in her respect for Janice’s character, that this was a considered, intelligent move. His mother would know that Janice would not do such a thing rashly. As an assertive and intelligent woman, she would have a keen sense of Janice’s needs and expectations. She therefore would decide to support Janice, with the understanding that if the divorce were to occur, it might as well happen as smoothly and easily for all involved. No hard feelings, make the transition to the next phase of life. Perhaps meaning,
I apologize for what my son has done to you.

Then he saw his options: He could either explode, thereby snarling all of his relationships, or he could play along. When he convinced Janice to return to him, and the payments were eventually revealed, he would win points by appearing relaxed and accepting of this necessary fibbing. Perhaps they would all laugh about it someday, how his mother had to help Janice stay away from him, so he would wise up. Son disciplined, husband chastened. Ha. He felt like torching the den and all its papers. But instead—for he was a man in control, wasn’t he?—instead, he replaced the checkbook, got his keys from the kitchen counter, and left.

WHEN HE PULLED
onto Delancey, he saw Cassandra parked in front of his house. She got out, severe and dangerous in a long black coat.

“Peter.”

She was a striking woman, and against his will, or perhaps not, he remembered her legs wrapped around his back. He shook his head, avoiding her face. “I’m in a rotten fucking mood.”

She moved toward him.

“Don’t, Cassandra. I don’t want you, goddamn it. My wife and I were about to make love. We were … together, closer than you or I could ever be, and then you and your goddamn cigarette smoke were there, fouling my
life.
It was totally inexcusable, totally. Immoral.”

Her words came through the chill air: “Peter, I’m still here.”

Was she insane? The thought was remotely intriguing.

“Forget it,” he snarled, cutting around her toward the door. “You’ve met a fucking stone wall.” He knew who she was and he wasn’t going to
become one of
them,
one of the lonely shades, chasing after life, pursuing death. “Go on, get out of here.” But she stood there like a statue, waiting. “Go on, leave me. Go read trashy romances and cry your eyes out. Go masturbate with a vengeance against all the men who never loved you. Whatever it is you do, scrape yourself off me.”

INSIDE HIS HOUSE,
he turned the heat up, made a couple of sandwiches. He needed something to calm him down. Cassandra had extracted the worst from him.

The phone rang, and Vinnie’s thick, bored voice announced itself. “Hey, I saw you quoted in the paper about the kid who got shot.”

“Sad.”

“Yeah, very very sad.” Vinnie didn’t give a damn.

“Hey, I owe you on that bet.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Vinnie said. “That’s not why I called.”

“What do you have on John Apple?”

There was hesitation on the other end of the line.

“That’s why I needed to speak with you, see. Peter, I think it’s going to be … ah, a little time before I have anything on this individual and I’m, ah, running into some overhead.”

“A search doesn’t cost you.”

“Well, Peter, you’re right about that. It doesn’t cost me directly, not a thing, actually. But this is, of course, a service, see.”

Peter didn’t like this.

“There’s going to be a charge, Peter. There’s going to be a big charge, because this is an extraordinary service. You right now are a very hot property in this town and so that makes it an extraordinary service. Ten thousand is all right. That’s the charge.”

“Then forget the service.”

He hung up, pissed at his own stupidity. The phone rang.

“Peter, don’t hang up again. I can’t accept disrespect from any person. Don’t
ever
do that again.”

“Vinnie, if you’re going to bleed me for running a search that costs three dollars of computer time, then forget it.”

“I can’t forget it.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean I can’t. I want that money whether I run the search or not. Don’t get short arms and long pockets on me, neither.”

“Forget it, Vinnie. In fact, fuck off.”

“Peter, hang on a minute. I want you to hear something.” Vinnie’s voice was fainter. “Gimme that thing, Jimmy, no—the goddamn tape, give me that.” There was a click, then a rasping noise. Then: ” ‘Just get what you can get. I want it fast and quiet.’ ”

Peter’s own voice. As he had taped Robinson’s brother.

“You made your point, Vinnie. That why you had me call you at a certain number?”

“I’m tired now, Peter. This bullshit tires me. Want some advice? Don’t fuck with me. Don’t think you can talk your way out of this. Remember how dirty I used to be under the boards? I haven’t changed.”

“Look—”

“I’m gonna look at you giving me some money, that’s what I’ll look at. Meet me day after tomorrow at nine
A.M.
in front of the old Bellevue-Stratford. That used to be one of the greatest hotels in the world. They had to go and chop it up. I don’t even know what they call it now. Say, Peter, we haven’t seen each other for a while. I’ve gotten very fat, very big.”

“This is a threat?”

“No. If I really wanted to threaten you, I would, you punk asshole lawyer. I’d tell you things, you know? I’d tell you that you should have picked up the fucking peanut-butter sandwich on the floor next to that dead boy.”

This fact had not been released to the media.

“I’m not giving you a damn cent, you fucker.”

“Think, Peter.
Think.”
Vinnie hung up.

He lay down on the sofa, sick with anxiety and suddenly overwhelmingly exhausted, yet knowing he had to analyze the problem. Maybe Vinnie was a bluffing small-time nobody, but then again, maybe not. The corruption in the city was like a pervasive organic slime; crooked careers sometimes flourished overnight or grew steadily with little notice. Because Peter had never done anything like this, and because his prosecution specialty wasn’t organized crime and unions, he didn’t know the latest arrangements. Vinnie could be working under the aegis
of somebody genuinely powerful. Structures shifted, friendships occurred, disputes realigned enemies. This was how the system went bad. How could he afford to pay Vinnie’s blackmail? His money situation was a mess. He was locked into a huge mortgage. The interest payments were like a heartworm, wriggling into one’s financial system, unnoticed at first, then causing slight discomfort, then panic, finally choking one to death. The only way to get money out of the house without selling it was through a home-equity loan, which took weeks and which would require a signature from Janice. But even if she somehow allowed him to get the money out of the house, he’d never get her back.

The mail had piled up and he took all of it to the computer and slipped in the financial spreadsheet disk. There had been previous times when he feared he lacked control, and through diligence he’d found a solution. He flipped through the mail for bills while the computer creaked as the magnetic head searched for the boot-up program. In the last few months his bookkeeping had been nearly nonexistent. But perhaps he could scare up a thousand dollars and get Vinnie off his back for a little while. He opened his bills and made a neat stack of indebtedness before him. And here it was: He owed Mastrude a $750 payment. The monthly mortgage was overdue by two months: two payments totaling $3,113.56. Soon the bank would start hassling him, threatening to foreclose. Some of that was tax-deductible, but he wouldn’t get that money back until spring of next year. The MasterCard and Visa totaled $1,785.34. He could pay the minimum amounts, but that was lost in interest immediately, almost as if he hadn’t paid anything. He owed American Express $423.86. Where the hell had that come from? He looked over the bill. A microwave for Janice’s apartment and automatic quarterly billing at the health club. Luckily, the telephone bill was reasonable, $63.39. The car, life, and home-owners’ insurance were due. There was a notice that his personal liability insurance was overdue, now in the grace period. He’d gotten something in the mail recently, detailing a liability insurance rider. Took you up to $2.5 million in liability for only a couple of hundred bucks a year. It seemed like a good idea then, a way to feel safe. People would buy anything to feel safe.