Marked Man (14 page)

I wasn’t long back
from our visit with Sheila the Realtor when I was summoned from on high.

Talbott, Kittredge and Chase was one of the firms that had rejected me out of law school. There were many firms that had rejected me out of law school, a glorious fellowship of discretion and good taste. Yet Talbott was the bluest of the blue chips, and its rejection, all these years later, still irked. Whenever I spied a Talbott lawyer, the bitter strands of resentment and envy rose like bile in my throat. By now I had realized that my big-firm dreams were a chimera, I was congenitally unfit for working for anyone except myself, but if there was a spot I still secretly pined for, it was among the brilliant successes at Talbott, Kittredge and Chase, one of whom was Stanford Quick.

“Can I get you something to drink, Mr. Carl?” said the very attractive paralegal who had escorted me into the conference room of Talbott, Kittredge and Chase on the fifty-fourth floor of One Liberty Place. The paralegal’s name was Jennifer, the conference table was marble, the chairs were upholstered in real leather. The conference room’s windows stretched from the ceiling to the floor, and the view of the city as it rolled to the Delaware River was breathtaking.

I sat in one of the leather chairs and sank in as if sitting on a cloud. “Water would be fine,” I said.

“Sparkling or mineral?” said Jennifer. “We have San Pellegrino and Perrier, we have Evian, we have Fiji, and we have a wonderful artesian water from Norway called Voss.”

“That sounds refreshing,” I said.

“Very good.”

“Do you do general paralegal work here, Jennifer?”

“Oh, no, Mr. Carl. I work exclusively for Mr. Quick.”

“How nice for him.”

I was sipping the Voss, admiring the view, remembering an old joke—
How do you get laid on Capitol Hill? Step out of your office and call, “Oh, Jennifer.”
—when Jabari Spurlock and the tall, elegant Stanford Quick entered the room. They didn’t seem so happy to see me. They seemed, in fact, quite peeved.

“Thank you for coming, Victor,” said Stanford Quick as the two men sat themselves across from me at the table with somber expressions and parched eyes.

“You didn’t give me much choice,” I said. “I’ve heard more temperate demands from the IRS.”

“Well, as you can imagine,” said Spurlock, his hands clasped on the table, his head leaning forward aggressively, “we are quite concerned about the events of the last few days and their effect on the reputation of the Randolph Trust. That is why I insisted on this meeting and why I insisted it not be at the trust but in this office. It was alarming enough when our supposedly secret negotiations were splashed across the newspapers and television screens, but it is totally appalling for the trust to be in any way connected to a murder.”

“I didn’t make any such connection,” I said.

“You were spotted entering the scene of the crime,” said Spurlock. “Questions were asked and broadcast over the air. The connection was made.”

“Let’s be clear about something from the start,” I said. “It wasn’t I who leaked our original discussions to the press. I told no one about it, not even my partner, and next thing I know, it’s on the television, so look to yourselves for that.”

Spurlock glanced inquiringly at Quick, who simply shrugged. “We didn’t leak it,” said Spurlock.

“Well, somebody did, and the disclosure put my client and my own health at risk. Why don’t you guys find out who spilled the beans and get back to me.”

“Nobody forced you to appear like a publicity hound on every news show for a week,” said Quick.

“I simply continued the story’s play in the media in an effort to bring the situation to a head more quickly. As for the murder, I showed up at the scene at the request of the homicide detective in charge of the case. It was the media itself that drew the connection.”

“Is there a connection?” said Stanford Quick. “Is there any link between our painting and this victim, whom the papers identified as one”—he opened a file, examined some papers for the name—“Ralph Ciulla?”

“I’m not certain yet. There is certainly a connection between the victim and my client. They are old friends. That’s as much as I can be definite about. But it also appears the victim may have been involved with my client in stealing the painting many years ago.”

“That hardly seems possible,” said Quick, rather quickly. “There was nothing to indicate that the dead man, or even your client, had the wherewithal to be involved in a crime of that sophistication. From all accounts, the robbery was pulled off by a team of experts from out of town.”

“Why do you keep saying they were from out of town?”

“No city has looser lips than Philadelphia, but there was never even a whisper about the crime from the city’s underworld. No thief ever crowed about stealing the works, no fence ever owned up to selling the metal and jewels.”

“Neither of us was with the trust at the time of the robbery,” said Spurlock, “and so we know little more than was disclosed in the papers. Mrs. LeComte would know more of the details.”

“Would you mind if I spoke to her?”

“Not at all. I’ll tell her to expect your call. But even if, as you say, this Ralph Ciulla was involved in the theft, why would he be killed now?”

“My best guess,” I said, “is that the murder was a warning to Charles to stay away.”

“Is he going to heed the warning?” said Quick.

“I’ll have to ask him that, won’t I? Much will depend, I’m sure, on you.”

“What are you talking about?” said Spurlock. “How are we involved in the decision?”

I poured myself more of the sparkling water, took a drink to keep them waiting. The meeting was about to shift from their purpose, to upbraid me for the media frenzy, to my own purposes, and I was using the pause to make the point.

“I’m afraid to say, gentlemen, that you are not the only ones interested in the painting. Because of the unwanted publicity, our Rembrandt self-portrait is suddenly in play.”

“In play?”

“An offer has been made, a very generous offer.”

“But it is legally ours,” sputtered Spurlock. “It cannot be legally sold.”

“This is all true, and I will so inform my client. But he has not been much concerned with legal niceties in the past and I don’t expect the legal situation will have a great deal of impact on him now.”

“What are you suggesting we do?” said Spurlock.

“Two things. First, increase the pressure on the government to come up with a deal that will bring Charlie home. The federal prosecutor I mentioned before, Jenna Hathaway, is for some unknown reason standing in the way of what I believe would be a fair resolution of Charlie’s criminal matters. Someone needs to strip her of the case and take responsibility, someone perhaps more amenable to negotiation. Second, you had mentioned that a cash payment might be arranged. It might be a provident time to come up with a specific figure that I can relay to my client.”

“We will not bid against a criminal element for what rightfully belongs to the trust,” said Quick in his usual languid manner.

“Don’t consider it a bid. Consider it a conciliatory gesture to a man who desperately wants a reason to come home and happens to have control over a valuable piece of your property.”

“It is out of the question,” said Quick.

Spurlock turned to Quick and said, sharply, “All avenues remain open until the board closes them off, Stanford. We will decide what to do; your job is to bend the law to make sure our decision stays within its bounds.” He focused his eyes on me, clasped his hands together. “How much is he seeking?”

“He hasn’t given me a number,” I said. “But it appears to be in your interest to wow him.”

“We understand. I will take this to the board, and we will be in touch with you when we have a more definite response.”

“Don’t wait too long. Now, Mr. Spurlock, I have a question on a not entirely unrelated matter. I believe you’re acquainted with a Bradley Hewitt?”

“I know Bradley.”

“I am involved in a domestic matter in which he is on the other side. His attorney used your name to threaten me.”

“How so?”

“He intimated that if I continued to press my client’s claim against him, you might scotch any deal with Charles.”

“That’s preposterous,” said Spurlock. “Bradley is a personal acquaintance, that is all. To think I would abridge my responsibilities to the Randolph Trust on his behalf in some sort of domestic dispute is insulting. And with the ongoing federal investigation, you can be sure I want nothing more to do with that foul-mouthed liar.”

“Federal investigation?”

“Mr. Spurlock has perhaps said too much,” said Stanford Quick.

“Federal investigation?”

“Our discussion of Mr. Hewitt is at an end,” said Quick curtly. “Now, Victor, I want you to listen closely.” Quick leaned forward, sharpened his gaze until it nearly pierced my forehead. “You say that the murder of Mr. Ciulla was possibly a warning to your client. Have you considered that the warning might not have been meant for Charlie but instead meant for you?”

His stare was so pointed, and his voice suddenly so cutting, that I jerked back as if indeed I had been stabbed in the head. Where did that come from? I wondered. And when I looked at Jabari Spurlock, it seemed as if he were wondering the very same thing.

“I don’t know what
you’re going on about so much,” said Skink. “It ain’t like you’re the only one what ever got hisself inked.”

“But I might be the only one who didn’t remember getting it,” I said.

“Oh, don’t give yourself so much credit, mate. If it weren’t for the mind-numbing effects of alcohol, half these joints would be out of business.”

By these joints, he meant tattoo parlors, because that’s where we were, in a tattoo parlor, or, to be more precise, a tattoo emporium, Beppo’s Tattoo Emporium. Tacked onto the walls of the cramped and dark waiting room were Beppo’s original designs: dragons and griffins, swords and daggers, religious icons, movie stars, insects and guns, dancing spark plugs, frogs and scorpions, skeletons and clowns, geisha dancers, samurai warriors, naked women in all manner of lascivious pose. Scattered about the waiting room were a few plastic chairs, a ragged coffee table with loose-leaf notebooks filled with art. The place smelled of ammonia and rubbing alcohol, of cigarettes smoked to the filter. From behind the curtain that covered the doorway came a steady buzz punctuated here and there by a whimper of pain.

“You find anything on that Lavender Hill yet?”

“I’ve been asking around.”

“And making noise about it, too. He is not happy.”

“It’s how you wanted it, mate. Apparently he has a hand in many pots and just as many names.”

“No surprise there.”

“Those what know him some think of him as a harmless fop with impeccable taste. But those what know him better are too scared to talk.”

“That’s troubling.” I thought of the outline of Ralph’s body on the carpet of his house. “Any reputation for heartless violence?”

“Heartless and otherwise.”

A yelp erupted from the back room. The buzz stopped for a moment. There was a loud slap, and then the buzzing started again.

“I had a friend once,” said Skink, “what got a tattoo of a rooster on his shin. The rooster had a noose round its neck. He said that way he could always tell the dolls he had a cock what hung below his knee.”

“He sounds like quite the ladies’ man. Anything yet on the federal investigation involving Bradley Hewitt?”

“I’m working on it,” said Skink. “We might have an errand to run in a few days that you’ll enjoy.”

There was another yelp and a falsetto curse, followed by a harsh “Calm your tools, we almost done,” before the buzzing started up again.

“You think this Beppo can help?”

“Oh, Beppo’s a pro, he is. The other artists in the city, they call him the dean. We’ve had no luck tracing the name, so we might as well trace the tattoo. He’s our best bet to pick who did the what on your chest. We find him that did it, we might find us some answers.”

“What’s there to find? I stumbled in drunk as a skunk and immortalized on my chest the name of a woman I hardly knew and can’t remember.”

“Well, mate, all that might be true. But the needle boy might remember who you was with and might be able to tell us how he was paid. Interesting, isn’t it, that your money was intact and nothing came up on your credit card?”

“Maybe she paid,” I said.

“Maybe she did, unusual as that might sound, and if she did, and paid with something other than cash, we might be able to trace her that way.”

“It’s worth a try, I guess.”

The buzzing stopped, replaced by a quiet, pathetic whimpering.

“How do you know this guy?” I said.

“I did him a favor once. While you’re in the chair, you want I tell Beppo to put a rooster on your shin?”

“No thanks, Phil.”

“It might help your social life.”

“My social life’s fine.”

“Oh, is it, now? You go out with that girl again?”

“What girl?”

“The one from the club, the one with the sister.”

“Monica? No, please. I didn’t go out with her in the first place.”

“You bought her dinner.”

“I paid the check at a diner. It didn’t mean we were dating.”

“What, you too good to date a stripper?”

“It’s not that.”

“I dated a stripper once. In Fresno. Nice girl, name of Shawna. Pious.”

“Pious?”

“For a stripper.”

Just then the curtain across the doorway swung open and a young kid in a T-shirt came out, his left arm hanging limply, a long white gauze patch covering his entire upper arm. His face was red and swollen, but it held a wide, helpless smile, like he was stepping out of his first whorehouse.

As the kid passed us by, a stocky older man came through the doorway, pulling rubber gloves off his hands. He had dark hair and big ears, a jutting jaw, the short, bow-shaped legs of a longshoreman. His thick arms were covered in tattoos from his wrists until they disappeared under his T-shirt. A cigarette dangled out of his mouth. He smiled when he saw Skink.

“You been waiting all this time?” he said. His voice had been burned rough by life and tobacco, and as he spoke, his cigarette stayed miraculously in place, as if glued to his lower lip. “I’da kicked it into third, I knew you was here.”

“Didn’t want to disturb the artist at work,” said Skink. “How’s business, Beppo?”

“I’m grinding them out.”

“What’s up with Tommy?”

“After you bailed out his ass, he up and joined the marines.”

“How’s he doing?”

“His second tour in Iraq. Maybe you should have left him where he was. So you the guy?”

“I’m the guy.”

“This is Victor,” said Skink.

“Where’s the piece, Victor?” said Beppo.

“On my chest.”

“All right, then,” he said as he held aside the curtain. “Strip to the waist and hop in the chair so I can get a look-see.”

The room behind the curtain was small and bright, with an overhead light and a chair in the middle that looked suspiciously like a dentist’s chair. I took off my jacket, my tie and shirt, and as I did, I had the uncomfortable sensation that I was exposing more than mere flesh, I was exposing a part of my inner life.

“Don’t be shy, Victor,” said Beppo. “I seen it all before, good art and bad art, the vile and the sublime.”

“You think you can identify the ink slinger?” said Skink.

“If he’s from around here, I can make an educated guess,” said Beppo. “I’ve seen the work of pretty much every shop in town. A big piece of my day is fixing up the mistakes of everyone else. If it’s an original, I’ll be able to ID it. Up in the chair you go.”

My shirt off, I slid into the dentist’s chair and leaned back. My jaw instinctively lowered.

“Close your mouth, I ain’t pulling molars,” he said as he slipped on a pair of thick glasses and leaned his head close to my chest. “Let’s take a look.” The ash of his cigarette teetered, he rubbed his fingers over my breast. His touch was strangely gentle. He made a sound like a failing carburetor as he looked over the work.

“No skin scratcher here,” he said. “This is nice work, made with a first-class iron. Classic design. Solid fill, the colors bright and even. Keep it clean, use the goo, and stay out of the sun. The sun fades everything. You look after that piece, Victor, it’ll stay sharp for years.”

“That’s comforting.”

“This Chantal lady, she must be very special to you.”

“Oh, she’s special, all right.”

“Any ideas?” said Skink.

“Not right off. The quality is high, and I think I seen the design before, but I don’t recognize it as from one of the local artists. Haven’t seen one exactly like this in years.” He leaned closer, peered through his glasses, pawed at the skin. “Wait a second. Wait a freaking second. I’ll be right back.”

He skittered through a bead curtain at the back of the room. We could hear him climbing a set of stairs, then footsteps and voices above us.

“He lives up top,” said Skink.

“Handy.”

“That’s his girlfriend he’s talking with,” said Skink. “She’s sixty-eight. The girl he cheats on her with is fifty-four. And then there’s a piece what he keeps on the side.”

When Beppo came back down, he had a fresh cigarette dangling from a victorious smile and he carried a big black book cracked open.

“I know the puncher what created the design on your chest,” he said.

“Who’s our boy?” said Skink, rubbing his hands.

“A fellow name of Les Skuse.”

“Skuse?”

“Yeah, with a
k
. Skuse. I knew I had seen that exact tat before. I been keeping a record of all the designs I seen since I started in this business. And I have a couple of pages of original Les Skuse designs. Let me show you. Right here.”

I sat up in the chair as he dropped his book on my lap. The pages were encased in vinyl covers. One page held a dozen designs of coiled snakes and dripping swords, of spiders and birds and skulls. The other page had hearts, all kinds of hearts, hearts with daggers through them, hearts being held aloft by fresh-cheeked cherubs, hearts with flowers, with arrows, with kissing figures above a banner reading
TRUE LOVE
. And then, in the corner, a familiar design, my design, a heart with flowers peeking out of either side and a flowing banner with the words
ANY NAME
.

“There it is,” I said.

“That’s the one,” said Beppo. “See how even the colors on the flowers match? Yellow and red on the one, blue and yellow on the other.”

“So Les Skuse is our guy,” said Skink. “Give me a where, Beppo.”

“Bristol.”

“Bristol, Pennsylvania?”

“Nope. The other Bristol.”

“England?” I said.

“Exactly so. Les Skuse was the self-labeled champion tattoo artist of all Britain. I met the man once. Quite a brute.” Beppo rolled up his sleeve, pointed to an eagle spreading its wings amidst a veritable zoo on his arm. “He did this. He’s a legend, all right. But even if you go out that way, you’d have a hard time finding him. He up and died a good long while ago.”

“I don’t understand how that’s possible,” I said.

“Well, he was getting up there in years. He was already old when he did my eagle, and being by the sea, he spent a lot of time in the sun.”

“No, what I’m asking is how—”

“I knows what you’re asking, Victor,” said Beppo, letting out a raspy laugh. “You should get out more, lighten up. You got a girl?”

“No.”

“Walk around without your shirt, you’ll find one. Nothing draws the girls like a tattoo.”

“But how did this design end up on my chest?”

“Somebody swiped the design, is how. It’s no crime. I done it myself.”

“Any idea why he’d pick that one?” said Skink.

“Sure,” said Beppo. “You see, every artist got his own style. It can’t help but come out, even on something as simple as a heart. Little telltale things like shading and shape, the way the barbed wire winds around it. As identifiable as a fingerprint.”

“Unless you copy someone else’s heart,” said Skink.

“There you go, Phil. The slinger who inked your tattoo, Victor, he picked this design because it’s the kind of thing you ink if you don’t want anyone to know who it was that done the inking.”

“He didn’t want me to find him,” I said.

“That’s right, and I suppose that means he knew you’d be looking, too.”

“Why would he want to hide?” I said.

“How the hell would I know?” said Beppo. “Ask Chantal.”