Drawing Dead (5 page)

“So
how you doing on these comic book guys?”

Freddy went blank.

“The comic guys! The comic guys!” Joey Cadillac shouted. He was having a bad day. His best customer, one Bubby Sharp, had been pulled over while test driving one of the new Cadillac Allantes, a slick little cherry-red two-seater with the Italian body and a sixty-thousand-dollar invoice. He'd lost his best car and his best customer, just like that.

And now Freddy Wisnesky, mind like a fucking color crayon, needed something to do. Joey picked up a pencil and broke it into two pieces, then broke the halves into quarters. He could not break the quarters, so he crushed them between his desktop and a brass paperweight shaped like a 1959 Cadillac.

“I dunno, Mister C.” Freddy shifted uncomfortably from one foot to the other. “The guy I talked to a few weeks back, he said they went to Minneapolis.” He didn't like it when his boss was disturbed, which was most of the time. “You want me to go up there?”

“Minneapolis?” Joey couldn't get his mind off Bubby Sharp, the dumb shit taking the red Allante, two days off the truck, less than a hundred miles on the speedometer, taking it out and running it up to a hundred miles per on the Kennedy, getting his ass stopped by the cops. Fucking cokeheads, Joey thought. If they weren't half his business, he wouldn't have nothing to do with them.

“That's what the guy said. He said he heard 'em talkin' about it. He said the one guy had a girlfriend up there.”

“Who's that?” Joey wasn't tracking. He kept thinking about his red Allante. The way Joey heard it, when the cops start flashing him, Bubby panics and cans it, which in the Allante takes him right up to one twenty, and the next thing, he's got every cop on the North Side coming at him.

“Catfish.”

“Catfish?” Sounded like one of his customers. The guys he sold cars to all had goofy names—Dogboy, Tacoumba, Mohammed. Or Bubby. Fucking Bubby, gets himself boxed in at the tollway entrance, gets the shit beat out of him, which he deserved by all accounts, and then they find a quarter pound of coke in the gym bag on the passenger seat. Of course, Bubby says he never saw it before. Shit. With a little luck, Joey might get the Allante back from the cops in three months. Even worse, Bubby would be spending his next decade in the joint instead of paying cash for a new-color Caddy every time he moved a few kilos.

“So now you want I should go up there?” Freddy asked again.

Joey forced his mind to the business at hand, the comic book guys. Unfinished business. A few weeks back, when Freddy found out that they had fled to Minnesota, Joey decided that he had more important jobs for Freddy right here at home. As much as he'd wanted to take care of the comic book thing, sending Freddy all the way up to Minnesota seemed like a lot of trouble. Besides, he'd had a few large and uncertain payments coming due, and Freddy's presence had ensured their prompt receipt. Also, Jimmy Spencer, his chop-shop manager, had a guy on a six-to-nine-month state-funded vacation, and he had needed an extra hand in the shop. But two weeks of Freddy Wisnesky was more than enough for Spence, and he'd sent him back to Joey with a note: “No thanks. I want my cars taken apart like that, I'll get a guy in here with a backhoe.”

So now Freddy needed something to do. It wasn't like you could tell him to go hang out until needed. A guy like Freddy had to be kept busy, or he'd get in some kind of trouble. The comic book guys were perfect. What the hell, Joey thought, it would get Freddy out of his hair for a while, and it would take care of that stabbing sensation he got in his stomach every time he thought about the Stasis Shields. The memory of opening the phony comic book up, Chrissy sitting right there watching, made his veins bulge. Now was the time.

“You want to go to Minneapolis? Why the fuck not? Isn't that what I told you before? Didn't I tell you to find those guys?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Then do like I told you. I don't care if you have to go to fucking Timbuktu.”

“What car you want me to take?”

“Take whatever you want. Wait a minute. Don't take an Allante, f'chrissake. Take something I can afford to lose. You like convertibles?”

“Sure.”

“Go over to Spence's shop and tell him to give you the blue ragtop we just took from Ohio. Have him throw on a new set of plates. Needs a muffler, but it ought to get you to Minneapolis. Okay?”

“Okay. Can I have some money?”

“Everybody wants money. Didn't I give you some money a week ago? My fucking wife wants money. My squeeze wants money. The cops want money. My lawyers want money.” He swept the shattered remains of the pencil off his desk. “How much money you want?”

Freddy shrugged. “Whatever you think I'll need, Mister C.” Mathematical reasoning ability was not Freddy's strongest asset.

Joey Cadillac glared at Freddy. How do you argue with a guy like that? He unlocked a desk drawer and pulled out two packs of twenties. “There's two thousand. Try not to spend it all on ties.”

Ellis
Ward's Big and Tall was having a slow day. Ellis Ward, former third-string tight end for the Bears, was standing in the window looking up Clark Street, thinking, as he did on a daily basis, that it was time he got into some other business, something he could make some real money at, when he heard a sputtering roar, then saw Freddy Wisnesky pull up in a baby-blue Cadillac convertible that must've been fifteen years old. It sounded like the muffler had been blown out.

“Thank you, Lord,” said Ellis Ward as he watched Freddy, a decidedly big and tall man, extract himself from the Cadillac and lumber toward the front entrance. Ellis moved to the door to greet him. “Mr. Wisnesky, how are you today?”

Freddy looked down at himself. “I'm okay,” he said. “You got any new ties?”

“I sure do. We just got in some real beauties. Genuine Chinese silk. Take a look, right over here, Mr. Wisnesky. I've got our florals in their own little section now, just for you. Check out the daisies, one of our classiest new patterns.”

Freddy picked up the bright yellow-and-white tie, held it up against his chest. It glared cheerily against his rumpled, unevenly gray suit. “I like it,” he said, handing it to Ellis. “I'll take it. What else? What's this one?”

“Those are carnations,” Ellis said. He had no idea what flower had inspired the pink explosions, but then neither would Freddy.

“I like it,” Freddy said. He picked out another tie, a darker floral pattern that was actually not too bad. “This too. What else you got?”

“Take a look at this beauty.” Ellis had a theory: The uglier and duller the customer, the uglier and brighter the tie. Freddy Wisnesky, with his sideways nose, muscled lips, and lightless eyes, illustrated this theory vividly. He didn't even need the hair between his eyebrows or the wart on his chin. Ellis thought that Freddy and his ilk might be using the ties to distract people, and maybe it worked.

Twenty minutes later, Freddy had selected every floral-patterned tie in the store, a total of nineteen ties. He always did. Ellis always kept a good supply of bright florals in stock for Freddy Wisnesky, who always bought every last one of them and never questioned the price, a fact that Ellis had noted early in their relationship. As he was wrapping the ties, he asked, “When are you going to let me fit you with a new suit, Mr. Wisnesky?”

Freddy looked down. “Something wrong with my suit?”

“No, of course not,” said Ellis. “I just thought you might feel like a change of pace. You know, maybe a double-breasted, or something in a tropical weight. . .”

“You don't like my suit?”

“I do, I like it.”

“You sure?”

Ellis Ward experienced a moment of indecision. He was reasonably certain that Freddy Wisnesky owned only one suit, the wrinkled and stained gray polyester he was wearing, and, possibly, two or three cheap, dingy-looking white shirts. And about five hundred ties with flowers on them. Ellis decided not to risk a good thing. “I like it a lot,” he said, ringing up the nineteen ties. The tie thing was too good a deal to risk by offending Freddy. Ellis bought most of the floral ties from an importer working out of Hong Kong. He paid about $2.50 apiece.

“With your discount, that comes to nine hundred dollars even, Mr. Wisnesky.”

Freddy handed him the bundle of twenties. Ellis Ward counted off forty-five of them and handed the rest back. Ellis Ward never shortchanged a customer.

I'll try anything twice, unless it's Crow's idea of pizza.

—Laura Debrowski

The Litten Securities waiting room
was long and narrow. Crow introduced himself to the ice queen who ruled the business end of the room from behind a complicated-looking desk. She flickered her subzero eyes at him, answered a phone call on her microscopic headset, then paged Mr. Wicky. Her impressive halo of hair inclined toward the far end of the room. Mr. Wicky would be right out, and the visitor could have a seat. Crow smiled and said, “Thank you.” The ice queen did not smile back.

Crow shrugged and looked down at the far end of the long waiting room. The large abstract print above the fake-leather camelback sofa looked like an original Picasso lithograph. Crow wasn't big on the fine arts, but Picasso always made him grin. Was it really an original? Probably just another poster. He started across the room to examine it more closely.

“Joe!” Wicky stepped through a door into the carpeted waiting room and grabbed Crow's hand. His handshake was firm and energetic, but moist. “Thanks for coming down. I really appreciate it.”

“No problem.” Crow withdrew his hand.

Wicky threw back his head and laughed. Crow couldn't find the joke, but Wicky had an infectious laugh, and he found himself chuckling along, feeling like a fool.

“Let's go talk in the conference room,” Wicky said, touching him lightly on the back, guiding him through a paneled door into a large open room full of desks, computers, and young men with carefully combed hair talking on streamlined white telephones. The room was surrounded by glass-walled cubicles, most of them occupied by other young men. Everyone seemed to be on the phone, staring into VDTs.

Wicky pointed at one of the more cluttered offices as they passed. “Mine,” he said.

The conference room was barely large enough to contain the sixteen-foot oak-laminate table. One long glass wall faced the main room; the other was paneled and decorated with three large LeRoy Neiman prints: a baseball scene, a football scene, and a basketball scene. Something for everybody—Picasso in the waiting area, LeRoy Neiman in the conference room. The duck paintings, Crow reflected, would probably be in the mensroom. At the far end of the table, an easel supported an enormous pad of white paper.

“I've been having one hell of a week,” Wicky said. “I got hooked into this very hot product. An investment pool called the Galactic Guardians Fund, if you can believe that. I figure to have every last unit gone by the end of the week. Figures to make over two thousand percent. I had to buy a chunk of it myself. In fact, I bought most of it. Got both Ozzie and Al in on it. Very sexy deal. I might have a few units I could shake loose for you, if you're interested.”

“Is that why you asked me to come down here?”

“No! No, I'm just mentioning it. I mean, I don't care. Like I said, I'll have every unit sold before I go home tonight. I just wanted to run it by you.”

“Consider it run.”

“Okay.” Wicky took a deep breath and lowered himself into the chair at the head of the table. “Here's what I wanted to talk to you about. You don't know my wife, do you?” He held his breath and raised the short, furry yellow patches that served him for eyebrows.

Crow shook his head and sat down, leaving one empty chair between them.

Wicky let his breath whistle out and seemed to relax. “Good,” he said. “Here's the thing, Joe. We've been married, Cat and I, two years now, and she's a hell of a woman.” He held Crow's eyes, nodding slowly until Crow, too, nodded. “Hell of a woman,” he repeated, his eyes shifting off beyond the walls of the conference room.

Crow focused on Wicky's nose and waited. Had he started the day with a little toot up each nostril? Probably. Crow would have.

“You know what I mean?”

Crow shrugged and let his eyes drop to Wicky's watch. Wicky noticed and pulled his hand below the edge of the table. “Do you have to be someplace?”

“Eventually,” Crow said.

“Okay. I'm not getting to the point, am I? You used to be married, right? Your wife ever go out on you?”

“Not that I ever knew about.” Crow paused. “She might've.”

“Damn straight,” Wicky said, rapping the tabletop with a knuckle. “You got to tie them down.” He slapped a palm on the table, pushed his chair back, stood, hiked up his trousers, and turned his back to Crow.

Crow said, “Look, Dickie, I don't know what you've got in mind here, but I'm getting the impression it's not something I'm going to be interested in.”

Wicky walked around the table to the easel at the end of the room and picked up a red marker. He drew a small triangle and, a few inches to the side, a small circle. “You agreed to hear me out,” he said without turning away from the easel.

Crow shrugged, wishing it were not so. He had a feeling that listening to Dickie Wicky's proposal would not be the easiest three hundred bucks he had ever earned.

Pointing at the triangle, then at the circle, Wicky said, “I married Catfish two years ago.” He drew two parallel horizontal lines connecting the circle with the triangle. “You used to be married, so you know what I'm talking about. You fall in love, you do just about anything.”

Crow nodded. The shapes on the paper looked familiar, like something from a math class he had taken fifteen years before. Or was it chemistry? He had been there for ten minutes now. Another twenty minutes and he could say No, thank you, to whatever it was, collect his three hundred dollars, and go back home for a nap.