Dirty Fire (3 page)

He took a deep pull on his cigarette.

“Bad shit, Davey. Real bad. There’s no cure. Where it is, they can’t cut it out without killing me straight up. It’s too far along for radiation, and the smart money says not to count on no chemotherapy.” He sounded perversely proud of his scholarship. “Can’t get the chemicals through what they call the ‘blood-brain barrier.’ Least, not enough of ‘em. So I’m completely fucked, man.”

He stared at me, his chained hands holding the cigarette so that it pointed at my face. “I heard about you, Davey—even in here,
‘specially
in here, you hear when a fine, upstanding guy like yourself steps in shit. You’re in the joint, a cop you know gets caught with his hand in the kitty, it’s like Christmas, right?

“But you know something? I didn’t believe it for a minute. I said to myself, Nah. Not my man Davey. He may be wound a little too tight sometimes—now, I’m just repeating what some people say, okay?—but he’s stand-up all the way. Even when you were—what? Locked up in County a month, right?—hey, I figured it was a cooked deal. They were just setting you up with a story so you could go under and play secret agent. You were just too straight arrow to be on a pad. Not for no goddam chop shop operators. And then your trial. You walk—on a technicality.”

His cold blue eyes fixed on me, unblinking. “Well. Whatever—but things must be getting kinda tight about now, huh? Say, maybe you
were
bent, eh? Just a little? I mean, you’re not exactly a virgin, my man.”

He chuckled. “You used to raise some
serious
hell with the semi-tough guys, Davey. It got to be a contest for some of ‘em, how fast they could get you to smack ‘em upside the head when they mouthed off. But you really lost it once or twice, didn’t you? Not cool, ‘specially when you’re the law. I heard they even suspended you for a while, once.”

He smiled coldly. “Bullshit stuff, sure. But then there’s this bribery business, Davey. Must be hard to get
any
kinda job, much less as a cop, when you’re carrying that kind of shit on your sheet. Even when it’s thrown out, people remember, don’t they? Figure there’s gotta be
something
there, at least a
little
fire for all that smoke.”

His voice became oily, insinuating. “After all, lotta people remember your old man. Acorns falling near the tree, know what I’m saying?”

He waited for me to respond. We stared across the table, holding each other’s eyes for several beats longer than what would have, in different circumstances, ended in blood and broken teeth and perhaps a resolution that no judiciary could overturn. Then Sam Lichtman bent forward, took a final deep drag and dropped the still-burning butt on the concrete floor.

“So what are the chances that we’d both be here, two old buddies who both get busted, both get taken off the table and outta the game—and then both get overturned? It strike you as unusual that somebody fucks up both our cases so bad that the evidence gets thrown out? Or you just like to call that pure dumb luck?”

“What do
you
call it, Sammy?”

“If you got the balls, I call it your ticket back, Davey-boy.”

Lichtman prodded a new cigarette out of the pack before him and popped it into his mouth. Handcuffs clinking on the steel tabletop, he pushed the matches to me.

“Light me up, Davey. Hey, how much you know about collecting art?”

It was after sundown when I drove back to Lake Tower from my meeting with Sam Lichtman. The darkness was soothing, a companion of sorts. In recent months, I had found it to be a presence I could talk with, or at least to. On the long drive back north, it let me ponder Lichtman’s story.

I dismissed Lichtman’s implied reason out of hand. Gratitude? For not participating in a frame-up? I shook my head doubtfully; my recent experiences had soured me on the milk of human kindness—at least, those that went uncompensated. It did not compute: try as I would, I had no success at making Sam Lichtman fit the role of grateful benefactor. With the Lichtmans of the world, there would always be something else—or at the very least, something more.

But I didn’t have the luxury of waiting for Mother Teresa to summon me in dreams. Whatever game Lichtman was playing, it was the only one I had.

I pulled my Pontiac into an empty slot next to a rust-dappled Ford Mustang and cut the ignition. In the sudden silence, the darkness felt larger—unnaturally loud, in its own way. It might have been laughing, though whether in sympathy or scorn I could not decide.

Not for the first time, I wondered if I was losing my mind.

Near my building’s doorway, a pinpoint of light moved like a red-orange firefly. It glowed brightly for an instant before fading, and the smell of tobacco merged with the other scents of the city night. As I neared the entrance, a black man of medium height watched me approach. He was wearing an expensive sports jacket under an authentic Burberry coat. He pitched a thin cheroot onto the crabgrass and pushed himself away from the cement block wall.

“You must be the last person on earth who hasn’t bought an answering machine,” the man said, the irritation obvious in his voice. “No cell phone, not even a pager. How the hell is anybody supposed to get in touch with you?”

“Len Washburn,” I said, and my voice was tight in my throat. “How’s the book coming?”

Washburn grunted. “Huh. Ain’t no book—not much of one, that is—as long as you keep pretending you weren’t tossed in the middle of some
deep
dogshit.”

I shook my head. “Sorry,” I said, flatly. “No comment.”

“That’s what I mean.” Washburn said, a disgusted look on his face. “C’mon, Davey—bribery charge, my ass. I know, and you know that I know, that you were set up. You just have to tell me how.”

His voice dropped. “Look, Nederlander and his little rat pack can’t go on like this forever. There are too many stories about the…uh, extracurricular activities your little police department is involved in. And I know the Feds are looking at what’s going on in Lake Tower.”

I half turned to walk away, and the writer grabbed my arm.

“Man, I’m on
your
side!” Washburn said, and there was frustration in his tone. “This town isn’t the squeaky-clean little ‘burb it wants everybody to think. I’ve talked to your so-called mayor and some of the other rubber-stamping gentlemen on your City Council. They just refer me to Evans, and your city manager acts as if he’s never heard of police corruption.”

He looked into my face, seeking a response that could not come.

“Help me with this, Davey,” he said. It did not sound like a request. “I guarantee you’ll come out looking like one of the good guys. Hell, I’ll make you the hero if you want. We can end all this, man. I just need the facts, and you can give them to me.”

I stood motionless, as if trying to pretend I wasn’t tempted by the writer’s words. Then my eyes fell deliberately to the hand that still held my upper arm. Slowly, they rose to Washburn’s face. Whatever the black man saw in them was enough to make him release his grip.

As I closed the door to the unlighted foyer, I heard the parting comment from the writer. It was pitched softly, almost gently, and I was not sure it was meant for me to hear.

“Start using your head, Davey,” Len Washburn advised, not without compassion, “for something more than a target.”

• • •

The night walked me to my door, and accepted my invitation to come inside. I did not bother to turn on any lights in the small apartment I had called home for the past five months. I had long since discovered that the dark was a courteous guest; it obscured the shortcomings, large and small alike, of my present situation.

In my previous incarnation as a cop, I had known this building as one of the faceless cement-block motels that rented by the hour. It was the kind of place where fresh sheets cost extra; the clientele, with other priorities in mind, had seldom considered the expense necessary. A series of high-profile vice raids had shuttered the building for a time. More recently, a new owner had seen the profit potential in the near hopeless and started charging by the week.

The apartment itself reflected the same fiscal philosophy. Concrete-block walls, inexpertly painted in institutional grays; a refrigerator, randomly dappled with brown rust spots; flimsy chipboard sets of drawers scarred with the char marks of old cigarettes. A television, its unplugged cord trailing on the floor like a thin black tail.

I had added little to the ambiance, or lack thereof. Near the bath lay several large cardboard boxes, one of them ripped open at the top to reveal a jumble of socks and other carelessly packed clothes.

Books—mainly hardcover, a conceit my finances had already forced me to reconsider—littered the room, dog-eared or butterfly-spread; the latest was a James Lee Burke novel, untouched since I had lost the ability to focus on anything but my own problems. A crumpled wrapper from a fast-food outlet gave a splash of garish color to a Formica countertop, nondescript except for the chips and scratches.

The only real order I had brought to the room was in the stacks of newspaper clippings and photocopied documents, arranged by subject and each marked in red. A pile of minicassette tapes, each of them also carefully labeled, teetered precariously next to a pocket-sized tape recorder and spare batteries.

Such was my contribution to the room’s
feng shui
—that, and in the bottle of vodka on the low coffee table. The bottle was neatly aligned with the single glass tumbler and precisely an arm’s reach from the
sitz
-pocked sofa.

It wasn’t much of a home, but neither was I the kind of tenant landlords care to seek out.

Aside from a few odd jobs and the infrequent wager based on insider tips, I was existing on an oversight. When the government had moved to seize my assets, my bank had, immediately and automatically, frozen my modest checking account and canceled the Visa card it had issued. I had been shocked, almost to paralysis, and then outraged. What saved me was that rage, a modicum of luck, and the cop-knowledge of how the system can be worked when one faces ruin.

It had taken an additional day for the government’s notice to reach Atlanta, home of the megabank that carried a MasterCard I had seldom used. Their bad timing was my salvation, at least temporarily. By the time that card could be canceled, I had already maxed it out with a last-minute cash advance.

The crisp new hundred-dollar bills fit awkwardly into my wallet. At the time, the thick sheaf of currency had provided a comforting bulk. Now, despite a concerted effort at fiscal conservation, not many remained.

I tried not to think about a future that was, at best, uncertain. Four or five drinks helped, were sufficient to coax a kind of sleep; it was not quite enough to choke off the dreams. I had not yet encountered the volume of alcohol that did that.

The Cubs were playing an early-season game in San Diego, and I half listened to the game on the radio. They were, of course, already struggling. As a kid, I had bought into the perennial optimism of wait-until-next-year; but next year had been a long time coming, and I was wondering if I should rethink yet another of my allegiances. I was pouring my second vodka of the evening when the telephone on the wall rang, discordant as a brick through glass. I let it ring a half-dozen times.

“You’re late with the money order,” Ellen said. “It wasn’t in the mail.”

Amid the emotions that rose in me at that moment, I was relieved to find I still had enough residual decency to include shame.

“Davey?” her voice said in my ear. She no longer pretended tears as she had so often, back when all this had begun; she was not even angry any more. Her voice sounded only annoyed, peevish at an undeserved inconvenience.

“I’m sorry, Ellen,” I said, finally.

“Don’t be sorry,” she said. “Mail one.
Fix
this.” Her voice hung for an instant, and in the silence I knew she was struggling to keep from saying something else. “I’ll wait until the end of the week. But then I’ll have to talk to Don.”

Don was the lawyer who had represented her during the divorce. He had done well by his client, all things considered.

“I’ll work something out.”

“You’ve been found innocent. Why are you still broke?”

“The charges were dismissed,” I corrected her stiffly. “The IRS doesn’t think it’s the same thing.”

“They sent a letter to my manager,” she said. “He called me in and wanted to know why I am being investigated. It was embarrassing, Davey. Really, I didn’t know what to tell him.”

“Then tell him the truth,” I said. “Tell him your ex-cop ex-husband was accused of taking a bribe, and the government is afraid he didn’t pay taxes on all that illegal income. Tell him they’re looking at every dime to see how I hid all my payoffs over the years. Or how’s this—you can tell him they seem to be doing it just because they
can
.”

“I’m barely getting by on my salary week to week,” she said as if she had not heard my words. “Davey, I’m sorry for you—really, I am. But all this has to end, Davey. Whatever you’re involved in, whatever you’ve done. Stop. Give it up, now.”

“I didn’t do anything either, Ellen. Not what they said I did.”

“Then why?” she asked. “Our bank accounts are still frozen; why? You can’t get a decent job-– why? Tell me, Davey. What is it, exactly, that you want?”

“I want my life back, Ellen. I even want
us
back.”

“Face the facts, Davey:; your life was never really that great.
We
weren’t, either. So what is it you really want?”

I had no answer that either of us could accept. So I stayed silent. For a long moment, I stood with my forehead pressed against the cool wall—listening to the sound of my own breathing and hearing hers over the line.

When she finally spoke, the anger was gone from her voice. What replaced it was thoughtful, almost calculated; she had come to a decision, and I had no illusions that my own welfare factored highly in her choice. But as they always did at times like that, her words sounded tender.

“Davey, Davey,” she said. “Why did you let this happen to us?”

Before I could think of a reply, she had hung up.