Part 18 (1/2)

C. A Word for the Big Guy Near five I phoned home, rousing Lyle from a sound sleep. He reported that he'd been getting the same strange calls as Lucinda: 'Mack there, when's he back?' He did not recognize the voice. 'Did you tell him?'

'f.u.c.k no, Dad, I know better than that.' His pride and his a.s.sumptions, the whole tone of his response, struck me in the desperate total way only Lyle could. It was so clear where he was frozen - the latchkey kid of thirteen whose mommy had warned him about strangers. My boy. Listening to him, I felt for a moment I might simply expire from the pain. It eased a bit as he carried on about the Chevy, which he'd retrieved from the pound with two flats. One hundred eighty-five bucks it cost, plus the ticket, and he wanted the money back. He made the point a number of times.

I've come home again with Brushy tonight. We had takeout Italian, fancy stuff, rigatoni with goat cheese and obscure antipasti, which we consumed between screws. I won't say how I ate my tiramisu. About an hour ago, as we were drowsing, her back to me, saved from drowning in my arms, Brushy said, 'If I ask, you'll tell me, right?'

'Ask what?'

'You know. What's going on. With the money. Bert. The whole thing. Right? You know, attorney-client. But you'll tell me.'

I think you don't want to know. I think your life is better without this kind of news.'

'And I accept that,' she said. 'I do. I know you're right. I trust you. But if I decide, if I really have to know, for whatever reason, you'll tell me. Right?'

My eyes were wide in the dark. 'Right.'

So that's how it is. My warped little dreams, private so long, are now hurling themselves through my life with volcanic force. Perhaps the sheer peril made my lovemaking with Brushy vigorous and prolonged. She sleeps as she's slept the previous nights, in the comforted grip of her own improbable fantasies, immobile almost, but I am desolate and awake in the dark, chasing away goblins and spooks, out here in her living room now, whispering again into my Dictaphone.

So you ponder, U You: What is he up to, this guy, Mack Malloy? Believe me, I ask myself the same thing. The apartment is surrounded by the odd silences of winter - the windows closed tight, the heat whispering, the cold keeping idle souls from the street. Since I actually committed this stunt, robbing TN blind and preparing to blame it on somebody else, my ma's barking accusatory voice seems to be with me wherever I go. She regarded herself as devout, one of the Pope's own Catholics, her life whirling like a pinwheel where the Church was at the very center, but her religious thought seemed to dwell mostly on the devil, who was regularly invoked, particularly whenever she was remonstrating with me.

But it wasn't the devil that made me do it. All in all, I think I'm just sick of my life. It seemed like such a terrific idea. But it was my fancy, my folly, my fun-time escapade. There's no sharing. h.e.l.l, it turns out, is being stuck forever listening to your own jokes.

So who is this for? Why bother talking? Elaine always had the same hope. 'Mack, you won't die without a priest at your side.' Probably right. I'm a short-odds player. But maybe this is the first act of contrition, part of the process that the Church these days calls reconciliation, where your heart, unburdened, rises to G.o.d. What do I know?

So here goes. Big Guy, Big Ent.i.ty, Big Being, if you're up there listening, I suppose you will think what you like. But please forgive me. I need it tonight. I did what I wanted and now I am sorry as h.e.l.l. We both know the truth: I have sinned, big-time. Tomorrow I'll have my stuff back. I'll be bitter and ready to stick it to everyone else. I'll be the apostate, agnostic, you won't cross my mind. But like me tonight, accept me one moment before I reject you, as I reject everyone else. If you can forgive infinitely, then forgive this, and have an instant of pity for your ragtag creation, sad Bess Malloy's boy.

TAPE 6.

Dictated February 2, 9:00 p.m.

Wednesday, February 1 XXIV. YOUR INVESTIGATOR HIDES OUT A. Waiting for Bert Brushy had an early meeting and went rus.h.i.+ng off at seven, wrestling into her coat as she grabbed her briefcase, a jelly doughnut stuffed whole into her mouth. I was still in bed and lingered amid my lover's possessions. Brushy's apartment had an overcrowded urban air. She was on the first floor of a brownstone with nifty Victorian touches -raised moldings and patterned plaster, and those little breastlike caps in the ceiling where the gas fixtures had been removed. There were tall pine shutters on the street-side windows that ran floor to ceiling, and many plants, and walls of books, stacks of everything. No real art to speak of - a couple of tasteful posters, but strictly representational stuff, no more adventurous than a bowl of fruit. In the bedroom, where I would have expected maybe a mirror or a trapeze, there was little furnis.h.i.+ng, except for a king-size bed and heaps of dirty clothing at the corners of her closet, laundry on one side, dry cleaning on the other. She looked, appropriately, like a person with a busy life.

About eight-forty, as I was getting ready to head out, the phone rang. Better not to answer, I figured. What if it was one of Brushy's pinup legion of male admirers? What if Tad Krzysinski was asking if he could slip her the big one at lunch? I let it go to the answering machine and heard Brush emphatically telling me to pick up.

'You better stay where you are,' she said.

'You're coming home for an interlude?'

'I just met Detective Dimonte.'

'Oh Christ.'

'He was looking for you. I told him I was your attorney.' 'He have a grand jury subpoena?' 'That's why he was here.' 'Did you accept service?' 'Told him I wasn't authorized.' 'Clever lady. What else did he want to know?' 'Where you were.'

I asked what she'd said, then realized the inevitable response and repeated it with her: 'Attorney-client.' 'I'll bet he was in a mood,' I added. 'You might say. I told him I'd have you get in touch.' 'When I'm ready.'

'He'll come looking for you, won't he?'

'He is already. He may even follow you. And I wouldn't talk too much more on this phone either.'

'Could he get a wiretap order that fast?'

'Pigeyes doesn't know from court orders. He's got a guy at the phone company he caught buying cocaine or with his thing in a glory hole who he makes throw switches for him when need be.'

'Oo,' said Brush.

'Attractive guy, right?'

'Well, actually,' said Brushy. I mean, you'd say masculine.'

'Don't do this to me, Brush. Tell me you're only saying that because he might be listening.'

She laughed. I took a moment to think.

'Look, I better cut out - just in case he got enterprising. I'm supposed to hear from a certain tall missing partner of ours today. Make sure Lucinda forwards the call to you. Don't get into any extended conversations over this phone. Tell him to give you the information I wanted on 7384.

Follow?' She a.s.sured me she did. 7384 was G & G's fax line. I looked forward to Gino listening in on that screech, the mating call of two machines. He couldn't tap that.

I gathered my briefcase, still packed with everything from Pico Luan, and walked down about three blocks, where there was another location of Dr Goodbody's. I knew I'd have to deal with Gino eventually. But only after I talked to Bert and figured out what I could say. I had plans - millions, in fact. Soon I'd have to choose.

I spent the day at the health club, hairy-eyeballing the gals in their leotards and playing with the machines. I've pa.s.sed time like this before. After all those years in saloons, I just get this yen to be near people I don't know. With a towel around my shoulders, dressed in a pair of gray sweats, I hop on the stepper, punch in a bunch of numbers, and jump off shortly after the thing begins to move. I do some pulls at one of the weight stations. Eventually I find someone to talk to, one of those dumb little chats that a drunkard gets to like, where I can pretend to be someone who's never exactly like me.

Today I stuck pretty much to myself. Every now and then I'd try to think through all the alternate routes up ahead, if this, if that, but it was too much for me. Instead, I found myself oddly preoccupied with my mother, feeling as I did last night, punished and without too much hope. I'd made my big move, so why wasn't I happy? At times I sensed myself on the verge of laments I'd heard from her, all this stuff about life being hard, being bitter, barren choices, none of them good.

I called the office now and then. Brushy had heard nothing from Bert and instead ended up describing the intense local anxieties with Groundhog Day tomorrow and firm income down 12 percent from last year. When I called again at four, Lucinda answered Brushy's line. Brush was out at a meeting. There was still no word from Bert, but I had two other messages. Martin and Toots.

I phoned the old guy first. I knew just what was coming: he'd thought it out overnight and was going to back off the deal with BAD, he'd rather get clobbered, he was too old to change. The thought was excruciating.

'I love the deal,' he said first thing.

'You do?'

'I wanted you to know, on account of yesterday I might not a looked too happy, but I love the deal. Love it. I told some guys, they tell me, you musta hired Houdini for your lawyer. n.o.body's ever heard of nothing like this.'

I mumbled something, just once, about how Brushy deserved credit too.

'You done me right, Mack.'

'We tried.'

'So listen, so you know: you need, you got. Call Toots.'

The Colonel was not the kind of guy who was hot air when he said he owed a favor. It was, in fact, quite a privilege. Like having a fairy G.o.dmother and three magic wishes. I could have a leg broken or get certain performers to sing if Lyle ever had anything like a wedding. This was the part of the practice Brushy was addicted to, somebody saying thanks for the help, not everyone could have done it. I told Toots at length how great it had been to represent him and, at the moment, meant it.

'Where are you?' asked Martin when he came to the phone.

'Out and about.'

'About where?' There was a new note here, a harsh tensile quality to his voice. I'd heard Martin talk like this to opponents, the man raised among tough guys.

'About where I am. What's up?'