Past Due (3 page)

W
HEN
I
CAME
home from the crime scene I sat on the couch in my living room, too weary and sick at heart to even take off my jacket or loosen my tie. I sat in the dark, and listened to my breathing, and felt a bleak hopelessness fall about my shoulders like an old familiar cloak.

My legal practice was failing for want of paying clients and my partner was thinking of bolting to greener pastures. My last love affair had ended badly, to say the least. I had been summoned to Traffic Court for a myriad of moving violations that were really, really not my fault. My mother, to whom I hadn’t spoken in a number of years, was drinking her life away in Arizona. My father was deathly ill, awaiting the operation that would prolong, but not save, his life. And worst of all, my cable had been cut off because I had fallen behind on my bill.

And now Joey Parma had come to me for legal advice and had ended up dead. We had met at La Vigna, at a table in the back. His eye had been swollen, his hands had been sweaty. And at that back table, just hours before his death, Joey Cheaps had given me something. It was something I didn’t want, something I had no use for, but he had given it to me all the same. He had given me a murder.

“This was twenty years ago,” said Joey Parma. He leaned forward, his voice was soft, he spoke out of the side of his mouth to ensure privacy. “An old buddy brought me in, told me to bring a
bat, sos I did. Nothing was supposed to happen. Just a little rough-up, is all. Three hundred for a rough-up. Some guy. Tommy something. I never knowed beyond that. He was coming to a pier on the river with a suitcase. There was supposed to be a boat or something waiting. But before he got to the boat we was supposed to take the suitcase. We was supposed to take the suitcase and teach the guy a lesson at the same time.

“It was dark, deserted, cold as shit. The lights on the pier was out, but the moon was this bright thing in the sky. We was standing in the shadows, smoking, we was waiting, see? And the bat cold as it was in my fist, and the chill seeping through our jackets. Little leather jackets, like Travolta in that movie, that’s what we all was wearing then. And so we was waiting and then we was waiting and then the guy I’m with, he stamps out his cig and says, ‘There’s the bastard, right on time.’ And I look up, and there he is all right.

“Just a shadow. Coming closer. And when he gets close enough, with that crazy moon glowing down on him, we get a pretty good look-see. He’s about our age, tall and lanky, his hair a mop of black that falls over his eyes. He wears jeans and a black turtleneck, he carries the suitcase. It’s a hard shell Samsonite thing like they had back then, and the light of the moon, dying on his dark clothes and hair, catches the shiny surface of the suitcase so that it sort of glows on its own. We can tells that it’s heavy, it pulls down his right shoulder so the whole angle of him is tilted, as he walks toward us.

“And then he senses something wrong. He stops, turns, calls out, something like ‘Johnny’ it was, and he calls it out again, but he gets no answer. When he turns around again we done stepped out of the shadows.

“There’s a moment when he figures out what is happening and then the strangest thing. You’d think he’d run, or come out swinging, or something. I was worried that maybe he’d be carrying and me, all I had was that stupid bat. But there’s this little smile comes on his face and he starts talking to us, you know, being all friendly. ‘How you guys doing? Nice night, isn’t it? Think we can work something out?’ Like he’s charming us, like he’s going to talk us out of it. But he’s not, is he? The other guy, he says to me, ‘Shut ’im up, Cheaps.’

“ ‘Shut ’im up, Cheaps.’ And sos that’s what I tries to do. One-handed
is all, I don’t mean to hurt him much, I want to get him in the arm, shake him up. I bring the bat back with one hand and give it a swing. And I get him in the arm and he starts cursing at me and he swings that suitcase at me and he slams me, he slams me. He gets me on the shoulder and it hurts, and I get pissed at this little pissant and I want to shut him up. Sos I grab the bat with my other hand and I take it back and I was never much with a bat and sos I figure I better put some oomph into it. And so I does.

“And he ducks, and it’s like he ducks right into it.

“In Little League I couldn’t hit a basketball with a rake, but this time, with this swing, I get him flush on the face and something gives, I feel it, and down he goes, as if a string keeping him up had been cut, down he goes, like a magic trick. Except it isn’t magic, is it? I give the bat a swing and it smacks up against his head and the string is cut and he’s on the ground and there’s blood, shit. And then we see, see that, see that he’s, that he’s…”

“Say it,” I said.

“Fuck you, Victor.”

“You sure?”

“No doubt about it. Blood everywhere.”

“What happened to the body?”

“Splash, man, if you get the picture. Hey, don’t look at me like that. I been sick about it every day from the time it happened. It wasn’t supposed to be like it turned out. We was just supposed to take the suitcase from him, is all.”

“What was inside it?”

“I wasn’t supposed to know, we wasn’t supposed to open it. But we did, didn’t we? His keys was in his pockets, we was supposed to get them too, and so when we found them we opened the thing.”

“And?”

“Loaded to the gills.”

“With what?”

“Cash.”

“Joey.”

“And it was heavy, too.”

“What was this guy doing with all that cash?”

“Who knows? But he wasn’t up to no good, that’s for sure. Just
the way he tried to charm us, the bastard, you could tell he was into something and thought he knew how to handle himself. Son of a bitch, if he just hadn’t of ducked.”

“What happened to the suitcase?”

“We was supposed to hand it up to the guy what hired us. But you see all that sitting in front of your face, what are you going to do? We’d been taking all the risks, and all for a measly three hundred each. Shit, Victor. The two of us what had done the thing loaded up our pockets, our crotches, our shirts, just stuffed in as much as we could. We ended with about ten grand apiece and you couldn’t really tell there was nothing missing, it was still that full. Then we locked it up again, and the guy what brought me in, he lugged it away.”

“Who was he?”

“Just someone. I don’t want to say. We go back.”

“To get out of this, you might have to tell his name to the DA.”

Joey shrugged.

“And this guy, he lugged the suitcase to where?”

“Don’t know. That was the job, to take the suitcase and deliver it on up. But the guy I was with said it would have to be buried after what I done with the baseball bat. That was twenty years ago and for twenty years there’s been silence. Until now.”

I leaned forward. “Tell me.”

“Last night. Late. They came around asking me about it, demanding answers, wanting to know who else was involved. They knew about the pier, they knew about this Tommy that we offed. And, Victor, they was looking for the suitcase. Two men, a sour face with a Brit accent what did all the talking, and some other, shiny-faced freak who stood stiffly with a cigarette in his fist and said nothing, not a freaking word.”

“What did you tell them?”

“Nothing. They wanted the name, too, but I gave them nothing. That’s why I got this decoration round my eye. But I always been stand-up, Victor. You know that.”

“Sure. Stand-up. So how’d they know about you?”

“I don’t know. I don’t know. But I’ll tell you this, ever since it happened I ain’t said a word about it to no one. No one, understand?
I ain’t like one of those peacocks strutting around, proud of who they offed. It made me sick, the whole thing. I look back, whatever I turned out it wasn’t what I was intending. You think I planned what I became. You think I planned three jolts in the joint. I was young, I didn’t know what I wanted. But after that, I couldn’t want nothing decent, you know? All I was fit for was what I ended up doing, small-time nothings with the occasional spectacular screw-up. But I thought this thing what happened was long over. I thought I was past it. And then, twenty years later they’re looking for the suitcase? What the hell’s that all about, Victor?”

I didn’t have an answer for him then—my advice had been to make a deal, to give the story and the name of his old pal to the DA, to pay the price and put the thing behind him, a suggestion he said he’d have to think about but that I figured he’d ignore—and I didn’t have an answer for him now, but I would find one, yes I would. On the last day of his life, Joey Parma had given me a sordid piece of his sordid past, and now that his throat had been slashed I couldn’t just give it back.

Joey Cheaps might have been a sad sack no-account who still owed me my fee, but he was a client. That means something, to be a client. It means he gets my loyalty, whether he deserves it or not. It means he gets my absolute best for the price of an hourly fee. It means in a world where every person has turned against him there is one person who will fight by his side for as long as there is a battle to be fought. And the final battle, far as I could see, was just beginning. So, I couldn’t just ignore what had happened, I couldn’t just ignore that my client was dead, that his killer was free, that his past had risen to swallow him whole. My life was imploding in on itself like the fizzling core of an atomic bomb, but a client was dead and something had to be done. Yes, something would have to be done.

But first things first.

“Y
OU WANT SOME
veal, Victor?”

“No, ma’am,” I lied. “I’m fine, thank you.”

“I made it last night. The whole family came. But I prepared too much. I have it left over. I will just have to throw away.”

“All right then,” I said. “If you’re just going to throw it away.”

“Good. Sit. And some baked rigatoni? And a sausage? You want me fry a sausage?”

“No, thank you, Mrs. Parma.”

“Are you sure? No trouble.”

“Well, if it’s no trouble.”

“Sit. You’ll eat and then we’ll talk. Like civilized people. Sit.”

I sat. It was no use arguing with Joey Parma’s mother when she decided you needed to be fed. You would eat and you would enjoy.

Mrs. Parma’s house was dark, the curtains drawn, the lights low. I could barely see my way into the kitchen to the little Formica table to the side, but Mrs. Parma, in a long housecoat and slippers, bustled about her territory with an assuredness born of long practice despite her failing sight. When she opened the refrigerator and bent down to feel for the platter of veal, the light illuminated the lines on her cheek, her lean prowlike nose, the dark circles beneath her eyes, the stoic tragedy of a woman who lost her son years ago and had just now gotten around to burying him.

She hummed as she cooked, pouring olive oil into the pan, dropping in breaded pieces of veal that sizzled with excitement, placing a square of baked rigatoni in the oven, slicing a sausage and adding it to the pan. She took fresh greens from the crisper, brought them to her nose and then held them gently in her gnarled fingers as she sliced the greens roughly, chopped the garlic, fried it all up together before splitting a lemon and reaming it over everything. It filled the kitchen, the smell of meat and garlic, the spices, the sizzle of oil, the delicious clatter of her knives and pans and dishes, the sound of her soft humming.

“You want maybe wine with your veal, Victor?”

“No, ma’am, that won’t be necessary.”

“I have a bottle already open.”

“Will you join me?”

“I’m not hungry. Who can eat after all these years? But I’ll have some wine, if you don’t mind.”

“Mrs. Parma, it would be a treat to share some wine with you.”

She reached into a cabinet, pulled out two plain water glasses, filled them with a dark Chianti. She lifted her glass. “To my Joey,” she said.

“To Joey.”

She took a drink and seemed to slump for a moment, the outline of her body beneath the housecoat sagging before she recovered, pressed a hand to her forehead, returned to the stove.

“Mange,”
she said as she put the plates in front of me.

I manged.

She sat with her third glass of wine, leaning on an elbow, as I put the empty plates in the sink, rolled up my sleeves, turned on the faucet.

“I’ll take care that, Victor.”

“No, you won’t,” I said. I filled the sink with water and soap, scrubbed the plates and pans clean, rinsed, left everything on the rack. I cleaned the counters with a sponge, I put away the garlic and oil, the salt. As I worked, she sat heavily at the table. She was a small woman, short and thin, weighed maybe ninety pounds, and still, to see her at that table was to see the force of gravity work on some huge awful weight.

“My Joey was an altar boy, Victor. Did you know that?”

“No, ma’am,” I said, drying my hands on a dish towel.

“In his little white robe, with the other boys, swinging the incense. Oh, he was angel. Sweet as marzipan. I have picture, do you want to see?”

“Yes.”

She started to rise, sighed, and sagged back into her chair. “One moment, please.” She took a sip of her wine. “He was good boy. In his heart. But that don’t matter much in this world. It wasn’t easy being Joey Junior. Joey Senior was a man, my God, Victor, yes he was. Just the stench of him, coming home after a hot day wrestling with the meat, it made my head swim. Did you know him?”

“No, ma’am.”

“Let me tell you, it was no easy thing being his wife. It was harder being his son. You needed to be smarter and stronger to survive him. I was. Look at me, the size I am, he was twice as big as me, and still I was stronger than him every day of his life. But Joey wasn’t. My little Joey. Forever trying to prove himself and proving nothing. Though always sweet, Mr. Carl. Always. Did you see how they came out for the viewing?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Lined up around the block. Such a crowd. They came out of respect for Joey Senior, and they came for me maybe, but they was also there for my baby. People loved him. He could have taken the shop, turned it into something for himself. Politics maybe. But that would have meant standing behind his father six days a week. So he became something else, even if what he became was crap. One day it was like a switch was turned, first he was just a sweet kid, and then he was ruined. Sad, desperate, stupid. Not a good combination. But as a boy, such a face on him.”

She put her hands to her eyes as if to cover her sorrow. A thick golden ring shone on her forefinger, with a diamond chip in the center.

“That’s a beautiful ring, Mrs. Parma,” I said.

Her face lifted. She smiled as she bent her hand toward me, like a young woman showing off an engagement diamond. “Pretty, yes.
You like? I wear it all the time. To me it is special. Joey gave to me years ago. A birthday gift.”

“May I see it?”

“Of course,” she said as she twisted the oversized ring off her finger. “He could be so sweet. He was an altar boy, did you know that? In his little white robe. I have picture. Do you want to see picture?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

She pushed herself up from the table, successfully this time, and rubbed her back as she left the kitchen.

While she was gone, I examined the ring. It was heavy, it felt solid, masculine. I nipped the bottom with my teeth and left a small mark. Nice. On the inside were the initials TG. I tossed it in my hand and then placed it gently on the center of the table.

When Mrs. Parma returned to the kitchen a few moments later she was carrying a picture in a frame. Three boys in white robes, young boys, eight or nine, posed in front of a church, butcher boy cuts with bangs hanging down. The boy on the right was chubby, happy, with a smile that could melt butter. Joey? Was Joey ever that happy? He was leaning against the boy in the middle, a broad, sturdy lad with a fierce smile and dark eyes. To the left was a tall thin boy, standing apart from the other two.

“Such a face,” said Mrs. Parma, sitting back at the table, twisting her ring back on. “If only he could have stayed like that. But boys grow up and disappoint, every one. That is the way of it. Even you, Victor. Is your mother proud? Truly, in her heart? Joey Senior was just a boy himself when I first set eyes on him. Striding down the street in his uniform. Who could tell what was inside of him?”

“I wanted to again say how sorry I am for your loss.”

“I know you are. You took care of him that last time, when he told me he was falsely accused. My Joey, always a bad liar, but he couldn’t help himself. He was allergic to the truth. But things were turning around for him, so he said.”

“Is that what he said?”

“That night, before he went out. He said he had a plan would turn things around for him.”

“Did he tell you what the plan was all about?”

“No. Never. My Joey never told me a thing. In fact, the policeman who came, he asked the very same thing. The black man with the Irish name.”

“Scottish name,” I said. “McDeiss.”

“That’s it, yes. I made him some veal. A man his size, he eats a lot of veal. He asked about you as much as he asked about Joey. But I knew nothing about Joey’s business. I knew enough to know not to know. He was my son, Victor, my boy, and I loved him like he was still my little Joey, but I knew what he was. And for that they killed him dead?”

“Who’s they?”

“Who knows? I don’t. But he was never very smart with money.”

“Joey told me he had a girlfriend.”

“That’s a lie. Not my Joey. He was never one for the girls, had no handle on them. Not like his father, who knew how to have his way. For my little Joey there was only me.” She twisted the ring on her finger. “I was his girl.”

“Do you know why he was going out the night he died?”

“He was going out, that’s all he said. Over to Jimmy T’s, that craphole, like his father before him. I used to send him there to bring his father home. He hated when I did that. His father would smack him each time. Never went on his own when his father was still living. But after, it became his place. Your mind can go crazy trying to figure it out. Jimmy T’s and that Lloyd Ganz, who was stealing from us every day of his life.” She spit between her fingers. “Whatever money Joey Senior earned, he took half of it, the thief. One hand is all you need to steal. Joey knew I’d never call there, so he gave me another number to call if I needed him.”

“What number?”

“He had a number where he could be reached if I needed him. I was to leave a message and then he would get back to me. Made me memorize in case something happened with my heart like the last time.”

She recited it to me. I took out a piece of paper and had her recite it again.

She sighed, took a sip from her wine. “Tell me, Victor, what kind of trouble was my Joey in this time?”

“It was about something he did long ago, that’s all I know.”

“Is that why he was killed?”

“I don’t know, Mrs. Parma. I don’t know why he was killed. He might simply have been in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

“Joey was always in the wrong place at the wrong time, but that’s no reason to be dead, is it?”

“No, ma’am.”

She picked up the framed picture of the three altar boys. “Take this.”

“No, Mrs. Parma. I can’t.”

“Take this. You remember him.” She jammed the framed photograph into my hands. “Take. Look. They killed the boy too, not just the man. Everything he ever was, it fell to the ground with the blood. The man, to be truthful, wasn’t worth much, even I’ll admit that, but the boy. Like marzipan. He would run from his father, snuggle on my lap, bury his head in my neck. The warmth of his tears, his sweet tears. You do me favor, Victor?”

“Anything.”

“Find out what happened to my boy.”

“I don’t know if I can, Mrs. Parma. The police—”

“I don’t want to hear about police. What have police ever done for my Joey. You done, you the only one. You find out what happened to my boy. You.”

“I’ll try.”

“Good. And when you find who did it, you let me know, okay?”

“I will.”

“You let me know and I take care of it. Like I took care of Joey Senior. Just get me the name, Victor. My knives are sharp. Whoever it is I’ll cut off his balls, slice them thick, fry them with garlic, feed them to the rats.”

“Mrs. Parma.”

“I shock you, maybe, Victor? He was my boy. You know what is vendetta?”

“Yes, I do. But—”

“What is wrong, Victor? You think I’m not entitled?”

“Of course you are entitled. And no, Mrs. Parma, you don’t shock me. It is just that I think we can do better than feeding the rats.”

“What are you saying, Victor?”

I reached into my jacket pocket, pulled out an envelope. “Have you ever seen, Mrs. Parma, a contingency fee agreement?”