Dead Man's Thoughts (29 page)

Before I could express either or both of these feelings, I caught myself. They were both stupid. The pictures were fine, neither as bad as my fears, nor as good as my hopes painted them. And I had to start somewhere.

Dorinda and I spent a very happy hour deciding which pictures I should mount and frame. The Palisades series I had done for Nathan. My Brooklyn Bridge shots, the ones I hadn't entered in the contest. They were printed on high-contrast colored paper, so that they looked like lithographs. Some brownstone portraits, done by season, to show snow, and spring blossoms, and fall leaves. My Victorian houses from home.

I felt a sense of real exhilaration. Finally putting my money—or my pictures—where my mouth was.

That night I was sitting up in bed, doing a crossword puzzle, when the door opened and Matt Riordan walked in. He was dapper in a three-piece charcoal suit with faint stripes of cobalt blue. His tie matched the stripe perfectly.

For the first time in three days, I was conscious of how I looked. My hair felt like a doll's synthetic wig thanks to the spray-on shampoo I had to use. I had no makeup on, and I was wearing an old nightgown topped by a flannel shirt I'd appropriated from Ron when he got drafted. It was faded and soft as a baby's blanket, and I loved it. It gave me a feeling of warmth, of security, of home. But it made me look like a shopping-bag lady.

He handed me a wrapped package. Clearly a book, but what kind? What sort of book would the elegant Matt Riordan choose for me? He was looking at me with amused appraisal. Waiting for my reaction. A kind of test? If I didn't like it, would I be forever branded as a philistine? I took off the brown wrapping.

It was a 1930 first edition of
The Hidden Staircase
.

“Riordan, you prick,” I said, laughing. “You
knew
that Nancy Drew crack you made would tune me up, didn't you?”

He nodded, grinning. “It did, too. I don't know when I've seen anybody get as mad as fast as you did.”

“And then you warned me about dangerous people. At first I thought you meant yourself.”

“I am pretty dangerous,” he said with a leer. “But this time I meant other people.”

“So what's new in court? What are they saying about Di Anci in Manhattan?”

“Haven't the cops kept you posted?”

“No,” I frowned. “For some reason, I can't get hold of Button.”

Riordan grimaced. “There's probably a good reason for that, Cass. The rumors aren't too good, I'm afraid.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well,” he began, with uncharacteristic hesitancy, “you know Di Anci's out on bail—”

“What!” My mind flashed to the memory of Di Anci's denial of release to Digna Gonzalez. And yet he, who had cold-bloodedly killed, was free on bail.

“He hasn't been charged with the murder yet,” Riordan explained. “Rumor has it he won't be.”

“What the fuck are you talking about, he won't be?” My voice sounded shrill.

“Well, the D.A.'s office is going over the Special Prosecutor's files. Interesting problem of jurisdiction. The Special Prosecutor was appointed to prosecute corrupt officials, but who prosecutes corrupt Special Prosecutors? Anyway,” he went on, seeing my impatience, “they've got the goods on Di Anci and Chessler, but what they'd like to do is turn them and get all the guys they were fixing those cases for. The biggies. Starting with my old client Burt Stone.”

“Let me get this straight,” I said through clenched teeth. “Those fuckers are going to play
Let's Make a Deal
with the guy who killed Nathan? No wonder Button couldn't face me,” I added bitterly.

“Cass, listen,” Riordan said. I had never seen his face without at least a trace of humor, a sense of irony in the blue eyes or a wry twist to the mouth. Now it was totally serious. “The case against Di Anci on the murder is shaky. So the D.A. can try him and Chessler for murder and maybe lose him
and
the heavies they were fixing cases for. But if they make a deal, they've at least got Stone and a few more guys like him.”

“So he'll do what? Cop to Man One, do two-to-six? Jesus!”

Riordan's voice was soft. “The plan is to go for a prosecutor's information and make it Man Two.”

“Man Two!” I was screaming now, my voice ragged with tears. “He'll fucking walk on Man Two! I've got guys doing three years for a goddamn nickel bag, and that scumbag can kill three people and walk on a Man Two?” I began to sob, deep, raw sobs. As I had that morning in the fog after Nathan died.

Riordan said nothing. No soothing words. No “please don't cry.” No pat on the shoulder. But no looking away, either. No embarrassment. He just sat there. It was enough.

T
HIRTY
-
THREE

“I
knew it couldn't be Del Parma,” Dorinda said complacently, “because of his suits.”

“His suits?” I sounded like Jerry North feeding straight lines to his wife, who, come to think of it, was also a cat freak.

“Because he was so into his appearance,” she explained. “His image. If he'd been fixing his own cases, the last thing he'd have done was try the Stone case himself. He'd have made somebody else do it, so they'd look bad instead of him.” Before I could answer, she got up to serve coffee to the other patrons. Being a waitress gives you good exit lines.

I turned to Bill Pomerantz, who was just finishing his country egg salad on five-grain bread. “Maybe I should have talked to her earlier,” I said. “I would have saved myself a lot of trouble.”

It was Thursday. I'd been out of the hospital for two days. Not quite back to work yet, but I'd go in tomorrow to see Paco released.

Bill looked uncomfortable. I was reminded of the feeling I'd gotten in the hospital, that he had something to say to me. “What is it, Bill?” I asked.

“I've never talked about this to anyone at Legal Aid,” he began, quietly but firmly. “I know people gossip about me. Speculate. Well, it's true. I'm gay. I live with a friend in the Village. I've even seen you around, Cass, though I've tried to make sure you didn't see me. I'm not ashamed,” he explained. “I'm not in the closet either. I just don't like people knowing my business. Which is why I could understand Nathan.”

“What are you talking about?” Oh, God, Bill, I prayed silently, don't take it all away from me now. Don't tell me I did all this for nothing.

“Look, Nathan was bisexual. I hope that doesn't turn you off because I happen to think Nathan was a hell of a guy. He'd walked through the fire, if you know what I mean. But it's no good pretending he was something he's not.”

“And the episodes in the men's rooms?” The words didn't hurt as much as I'd thought they would. Somewhere along the line I guess I'd learned to accept the truth, whatever it was. Flaherty hadn't. He never would. That was why he hadn't come to see me in the hospital. Nathan was lost to him, and maybe I was too.

Bill pursed his lips. “Look, Cass,” he said firmly. “It's not easy for a guy to repress something his whole life and then reach a point where it won't repress anymore. Lots of people do crazy things when they first come out. But they mature as they accept themselves. As Nathan did.”

That was a help. I pushed my luck. “He wouldn't have made it with a client either, would he?”

“I don't know, Cass. Why not ask the kid?”

“I want the truth, Paco,” I said flatly. “Not the bullshit you've been handing out.”

I faced him across the table at the New Deal Coffee Shop, near the courthouse. The deal with Judge Tolliver had gone down, the murder charges had been dropped, and Paco was out pending his resentence on the old case.

Paco looked down at the half-eaten jelly doughnut in front of him. “No, you don't,” he mumbled.

He had a point. I didn't really
want
the truth. But, like the Stones said, you can't always get what you want. Sometimes you get what you need.

“Paco, I need to know.”

“Wasn't what you think,” he muttered, still focused on the doughnut.

“Don't tell me what I think. Just tell me how it was.”

He looked around the nearly-empty restaurant, then crouched forward conspiratorially. I was reminded of Charlie Blackwell, with his yellow teeth, stinking breath, pathetic secrets.

“I knew the minute I seen him what he was,” Paco whispered. “I seen too many of them dudes not to. So I told him if he get me cut loose, I pay him back. You know?”

I got the picture. I nodded. It was hard. I wanted to tell him to shut up, that I'd changed my mind, that the old lie would be better after all. But I didn't.

“When I was released, I went home with him.”

“Just that once?” I asked, grasping at a straw.

“No, lady.” Paco shook his head. “I seen him a lot after that.”

The bitterness of the truth welled up inside me. “Did you give him a discount, or did he have to pay the full price?” I demanded. “And when did you steal his watch?”

“Shut your fucking mouth!” Paco screamed, hitting the formica-topped table. “I told you it wasn't
like
that. That first night, nothin' even happened. He said I ain't owed him nothin' for gettin' me out. Wasn't no money, wasn't no hustle. Wasn't no stealin' the watch. He give it to me.” Paco's voice cracked. He was near tears. I was ashamed of what I'd said. He'd hurt me with the truth I'd asked for, and I hurt him back. And yet the hurt was bringing out things we both maybe needed to say and hear.

“You loved him, didn't you?” I asked, keeping my voice soft and low.

His face twisted, tears falling from the long, lush lashes down his cheeks. “Don't say that, lady. It ain't right to love like that.”

“That's not what Nathan thought,” I said.

Paco sniffled and wiped his hand across his face. There was a look of surprise on his face. “No,” he agreed, “he said it was okay. He even said—” he choked again, then swallowed and went on—“he said I was okay. See, I never met nobody like him. My mother, my brother, they all thinkin' something wrong with a guy who fucks other guys, you know? Like, they can dig the money I got, but that's all. But Nathan, he says it's okay even if no money. Just to do it 'cause you like somebody. That's okay.”

I nodded. Encouraged, Paco went on. “That's why he give me the watch. Because he like me. I'm gonna miss him a lot, you know?”

“I know, Paco, I know.”

So we sat there for a moment in silence. Nathan's lovers. The irony of the situation began to hit me. I'd pushed hard to find the truth about Nathan's death because I hadn't wanted to believe he'd been gay. I was wrong. Yet I'd been right, too. The ropes, the magazines, the implication of exploitation in his relationship with Paco—these I'd been right about. I
had
known the essential Nathan, after all. The gentle lover. Did it matter so much whom he'd loved?

I wondered what would become of Paco. Another lover? Probably the best thing that could happen to him. To become a trick, in the Fran Lebowitz sense of the word. He'd get security and an education from the right sort of lover. More than a semiliterate dropout with a sheet could get from any other line of work. What a probation report! Recommendation: a long-term, live-in affair with a middle-aged queen. Paco would never find another Nathan, but the closer he came, the better.

After I left the coffee shop, I walked to the Promenade. I had to think. I stood at the railing, looking out over the harbor. Boats—red tugs and yellow ferries—scudded along the water. A gull flew at me, its tiny pink feet tucked protectively under its breast.

I thought of Ryokan. One of Nathan's favorite Zen stories. Ryokan lived the simplest kind of life in a little hut at the edge of the village. One day, while he was out, a burglar came to the hut, but he found nothing to steal. Ryokan returned home and surprised the thief. “You may have come a long way to visit me,” he told the burglar, “and you should not go away empty-handed.” Whereupon he took off his clothes and gave them to the thief, who put them on and slunk away.

Ryokan sat naked outside his hut, looking at the moon. “Poor fellow,” he said, “I wish I could have given him this beautiful moon.”

There it was. Why Nathan died. Not just because he got in Di Anci's way, but because the caring, the compassion, that made him Nathan left him wide open. Di Anci had said that Nathan had been too conscientious about seeing Blackwell right away. He had also been too generous with Paco, allowing himself to be set up through the boy. And he had opened the door to Di Anci, knowing him to be a crook, but not suspecting that he could be worse. He had wanted to give them all the moon.

Monday morning. Pre-trial butterflies. I had to start picking the jury in Hezekiah Puckett's case at ten.

I was on my way to the Promenade to plan my strategy when I noticed the headline:

JUDGE FOUND SLAIN

There was a picture of Di Anci. I bought the paper. His body had been found in the trunk of a car in Bay Ridge. He had been shot through the back of the head. Police were calling it a “gangland-style killing” and linking it to the fact that he had agreed to turn State's evidence in the corruption cases.

Burton Stone the Fixer had fixed again.

It didn't bother me. Perhaps conventional justice had failed. Street justice hadn't. It seemed a fitting ending, Brooklyn-style.

I walked on to the Promenade. Di Anci was dead, but Puckett was alive. Alive and in need of a defense. Which I didn't have.

I stood at the railing, looking out over the harbor, trying to figure out how to cope with a hopeless case and a drunken client, when the lines of a Phil Ochs song ran through my head. “Show me the whiskey/stains on the floor.…” I could hear Baez' clear, diamond-hard voice singing. “… Show me a drunken man/as he stumbles out the door. And I'll show you a young man/with many reasons why/and there but for fortune/may go you or I.”