The Lasko Tangent (11 page)

McGuire’s gaze broke. He nodded, his eyes angled away from me. An uneasy mix of anger and chagrin haunted the gesture. Against the bare wall, he looked as solitary as the last tenant in a condemned building.

I picked up my case and walked to the door. I opened it, then leaned back. “By the way, Joe, have you started making funny phone calls?”

I was looking for recognition in his eyes. All I got was anger—and puzzlement. I slammed the door and left.

Suppressed rage overcame me. I moved half-blind through the corridors, back to my section. It was still there, the clatter and greyness, as if nothing had changed. A mail boy delivered a stack of memos and the agency newsletter. Three of the girls sat at Debbie’s desk, talking and stirring their coffee with the serene complacency of civil servants. It was a big day. One of the girls had won the ECC bowling championship.

I looked around the fringe of offices, feeling like a visitor from Botswana. Feiner stared out of his office, saw me, and looked away. A strange face brushed by me, attached to a flying shirttail. They had hired someone new. I went toward my office.

Debbie glanced up and followed me inside the office. She just looked at me for a while. “Are you all right?” she finally asked.

“I guess.”

Her eyes were still and serious. “I’m sorry about your witness,” she said simply.

Somehow, it was the most normal reaction I’d seen in three days. Then it struck me that Mary had said much the same thing. I tried to puzzle out the difference. I couldn’t. “Thanks,” I finally said.

She nodded. “If you’d like to talk—” The sentence drifted off, as if to tell me it was optional. I told her I’d do that, and ran out of things to say. She went back to her desk, closing the door behind her.

I threw my attaché case on the desk and sat down. I was still staring at the case when Robinson knocked on the door. His face was keen and sympathetic. “What happened, for Christsakes?”

He sat down while I told him—about everything but the memo. It helped, getting it out. But the memo stuck in my throat. So, somehow, did the phone call. Perhaps in daylight it seemed childish. Anyhow, I held it back.

Robinson was weighing it all. “So you think Lasko killed Lehman?” he asked.

“Yeah.”

He nodded. “It makes some sense.”

The grimness of the thing filled the room, as if Robinson had confirmed Lehman’s death. Robinson felt it too. He fished awkwardly for something to divert me. “You know,” he said finally, “there’s only so much you can do by yourself.”

“How do you mean?”

He leaned back with the air of a man telling a parable. “A few years ago, I had a secretary who’d always fall asleep at her typewriter with her nose running. One day I took a good look at her arm. Needle tracks all over. So I tried to have her canned. She found out and filed a complaint with the Equal Employment Opportunity counselor, claiming I was a racist.”

“What happened?”

“I got my ass chewed by personnel, and had a talk with some pompous shit about my latent racism. The upshot was that I was ordered to have weekly counseling sessions with my secretary, to help her along. They lasted three weeks. The fourth week I couldn’t take it any more. I recommended her for a promotion. She’s now supervising a typing pool of thirty girls, between naps.”

I shook my head. “The point is,” he added, “that it goes with the territory.”

The story seemed to have some vague but depressing relation to my work, perhaps even to Lehman. Robinson’s acceptance bothered me. I tried to think of something constructive.

“The Boston office served the subpoena for Lasko’s financial stuff on Wednesday. Think you can get them to air express those down today?”

“Some of them.”

“Let’s look at them this weekend. There has to be something else going on that ties in with all this.”

“I’ll do it,” he said crisply. “Anything else?”

My mind was still on the memo. “You do know we’re meeting with Lasko at 3:30?”

His eyes looked puzzled through the thick glasses. “So I hear. I can’t say I like the rules.”

“It wasn’t my idea, Jim.”

He nodded. “I had guessed that. Did you talk with McGuire?”

“We had words about it,” I said dryly. “I had my second almost-firing this week.”

Robinson’s bemused look returned and focused on his fingernails. “Ever wonder why he doesn’t can you?”

“Yep. My answer is that it’s too much trouble to boot me in the middle of this.”

“Then the question you should ask is why he put you on this one in the first place. Anyone else would have been less trouble.”

It was as if he had sniffed out my suspicions and was conducting a veiled debate. With me and with himself. I wanted to tell him about McGuire and Lasko’s lawyer. And about the memo. But that would put Robinson in the middle, between McGuire and me. He didn’t want to be there.

“I’ll think on it, Jim. And I appreciate your help.” I felt as if I were closing out his friendship, selling him short. But he didn’t need my problems, and I couldn’t make him hold out on McGuire. I let him go.

I got up and closed the door after him. Then I pulled the manila envelope out of the attaché case. Lehman’s memo. I fingered it, wondering if the absurd scrawling could somehow kill me too. I stared for a long time. Then I opened up my desk drawer and looked in. The bottom of the drawer was two layers of metal. I took my letter opener, jammed it between the layers at the front of the drawer and pried. It lifted minutely, making a crack between the two layers. I pulled it back out, and took the memo out of the envelope. I copied the cryptic words on a note pad, ripped it off, and stuffed it in my wallet. I replaced the memo in its envelope. Then I re-pried the layers with the opener. I took the envelope in my left hand and tried to slide it between the layers. It fit. I slowly shoved it all the way in.

I thought for a while. It was a turning point, I knew. I could hide it, or give it up and try to walk away. But I had probably come too far the first time I read it. I closed the drawer and locked it.

I leaned back in my chair and waited for William Lasko.

Fourteen

I picked up Robinson about 3:20 and went to the conference room. It was done in bargain chic: a cheap wooden table and Swedish modern chairs, covered in yellow, maximum life three years. There were glass windows on two sides, covered by cheap orange burlap curtains. A green plastic schefflera, in a pot, completed the room.

We sat in the disposable chairs, joking uneasily about the decor and waiting because Lasko had the suck to make us wait and knew it. Robinson’s bemused look had turned glum. My defensiveness was mixed with fear; I thought I was meeting Lehman’s murderer, the man behind the quiet voice on my telephone, the author of the memo hidden in my desk. It was a new experience. I gazed absently at the curtain, trying to rehearse my plan.

I looked at my watch. It was 3:40. Lasko was making a point. It was effective. Each second measured itself out, separately. Robinson’s forefinger made invisible grooves on his notepad. I caught myself tapping the table with my pen, Gene Krupa style.

The phone rang. The downstairs guard told me that Lasko had arrived, with his lawyer. I said to send them up to the conference room, third floor. We waited. Then the door cracked open.

Lasko’s pictures hadn’t prepared me. He filled the doorway, at least six-four, two-thirty, and giving a sudden impact of darkness and controlled force. He entered and strode around the conference table, smiling broadly, with the air of a man securing a beachhead. He got close, where he could look down at me, and administered a bone-crunching handshake.

“I’m William Lasko.” His eyes riveted mine, gauging my reaction.

I tried not to have any. “How are you, Mr. Lasko. I’m Christopher Paget.”

He stared a second longer, then turned to Robinson, repeating the ritual. He had a Southwestern look: high color, fleshy face, and black eyes, hard and intelligent. I gestured at the table. Lasko appropriated a chair with a decisive grasp and sat down. He had a kind of self-conscious presence, as if he were watching himself in the mirror, approvingly. It was oddly impressive. I felt puny, aware of my unimportance.

It was then that I noticed Catlow. He was standing in the background, the perfect self-effacing counselor. The contrast with Lasko was striking. Catlow was slight, sandy-haired, and sallow as a Dead Sea scroll. He introduced himself in a dry, thin voice and parceled out a fleeting handshake. His liveliest feature was the sharp, careful grey eyes. Unobtrusiveness was Catlow’s business. I looked back at Lasko. He was black-haired, with a blunt nose and a thick full mouth. Obscurity wouldn’t suit him.

We all sat, Robinson to my right, the other two to my left. Lasko leaned over the table, as if it were something he had bought. They stared at me, waiting as I considered how to start.

The phone rang. I picked it up. An overseas operator rasped at me, asking for Lasko. I handed it to him. His baritone voice was rich with satisfaction. “I’ve got some acquisitions in the fire. I can’t get away—people always needing to talk.” He spoke into the phone. “Leo. Where are you? Japan? What the hell time is it over there? Yes, I’m with the ECC. What’s up?” Lasko was conducting both sides of the conversation, for my benefit. I wondered how poor Leo liked getting up at midnight to call the boss.

Lasko kept talking to Leo, watching me. I watched back to keep him happy. “Yeah, OK. Thirty-five a ton? That’s a holdup.” His eyes followed me jealously, demanding my attention. “Listen, Leo, that’s bullshit. You ask that Jap where else he’s going to get coal like that for his crappy little island. Then take a walk. In two weeks he’ll be crawling.” I got the message: Lasko was a very important man. That was his way of relating to people. What was important was to be important. Lasko needed importance like a junkie needs smack. And Lehman had somehow threatened the supply.

Lasko finally rang off. I looked at him, waiting him out. He finally spoke. “Well, Mr. Paget, what’s on your mind?” His voice had a pushy heartiness, to prod me back in line. Catlow sat, hands on the table, completely still.

I answered politely. “I was thinking, Mr. Lasko, that you might throw out some suggestions as to what we can accomplish here.”

Lasko answered smoothly. “All right. I think we should let our hair down. I’m being practical. Your investigation is bad for my company.” He spread his hands in a gesture of openness. “Ask me anything you want. I’ll answer all your questions until you’re satisfied that you’ve got absolutely nothing to worry about.” The amiable words were surface amenities; the speech was imperious. Lasko figured he owned me, like Lehman. His contempt was as palpable as the August heat.

I made myself smile. “I appreciate that.” I fished around for what was strange in the meeting. Then it hit me. No one had mentioned Alec Lehman.

I spoke diffidently. “Ready to go?”

Lasko smiled back, opening his hands again. “Ready.”

I spoke very slowly. “Did you kill Alexander Lehman?”

Each word dropped like a stone. Catlow’s eyes widened, almost imperceptibly. His right hand fluttered. The smile lingered on Lasko’s face a second after his brain tried to erase it. Then his features set in a cast as primitive as I had ever seen, the primal face of a predator. It was my answer. His formal response was an anticlimax, delivered in a monotone selected to be meaningless.

“No.”

“That’s a relief.” I turned to Robinson. “Do you have anything else for Mr. Lasko?”

Robinson stared at me, then shook his head solemnly.

Catlow cut in. The strain showed in his parched voice. “Surely you must have more questions. Mr. Lasko has made himself available, at considerable trouble, in the middle of three acquisitions. You should do a better job than this.”

McGuire just couldn’t get good help anymore. I waved Catlow’s words away and turned to Lasko. “Consider yourself cleared, Mr. Lasko. Can I see you out?”

Lasko’s baritone carried an icy tremor. “Mr. Paget, you’re making a serious mistake.” Condescension cut him to where he lived, pushed him to ultimates. His face said the rest—that I was making Lehman’s mistake.

I couldn’t let Lasko see my chill. I spoke quietly. “You’re a taxpayer. Write your Congressman. You and I are through—for now.”

Catlow touched Lasko’s sleeve. “Wait for me downstairs, Bill. Mr. Paget and I are going to talk.” Lasko didn’t answer. Catlow went on in the same calm tone. “This”—he nodded at me as if I were the potted plant—“is why I’m your lawyer.” Lasko was still staring at me. I wasn’t sure he had heard. The atmosphere was as murderous as fallout. Then Lasko wrenched out of his chair, raked me with a last hot glance, and stalked from the room. The man’s strange force lingered; the room seemed suddenly empty.

Catlow remained where he sat, eyeing us coolly across the table. He turned to Robinson. “Would you excuse us? Mr. Paget and I need some discussion time.”

Robinson glanced at me. I nodded. He left, looking dubious.

Catlow and I were alone. “You’ll have to excuse my client,” he said.

“Pretty broken up about Lehman, isn’t he?”

Catlow lit a cigarette, an appropriately cautious low-tar brand, and reached for an ashtray. His movements were spare and abstemious. He looked up. “I imagine that you’re feeling quite heroic. Every young government lawyer probably dreams of his moment in the sun. ‘Young Mr. Paget, valiant for truth.’” He exhaled smoke, and appraised me through the haze.

He was quietly patronizing, but his words were close enough to be uncomfortable. “Something like that.”

He gave a thin, satisfied smile. “It’s very foolish, Christopher. This case will come and go and in a year will be nothing more than a footnote in a budget request, gathering dust. Even if there is a case, it will settle for a consent decree, and nothing will have happened. Except to you.” He looked at me with level grey eyes, choosing his words with care. “Putting aside what was said here this afternoon, the consequences to you could be considerable. You will make enemies needlessly. You will be an undesirable, not because you’ve made people angry, but because you’ve made people angry in a way that reflects on your judgment—over nothing.”