Bagmen (A Victor Carl Novel) (31 page)

CHAPTER 54

PETER PARKER

W
hen I emerged from Grosset’s Montauk bungalow with both my bag and my future sealed, the sun was low in the horizon and Melanie Brooks was leaning on my car, ever fresh and put together in her patented red dress. I walked slowly down the pale pebbled drive to the car parked on the far side of the curbless road edged by weeds, and took a spot on the hood next to her. We both stared at the house to avoid staring at each other.

“How’d you get here so quickly?” I said.

“The airport’s just a mile and a half away. I figured whatever was going to happen, I needed to get here as fast as I could. Did you shoot him in the gut?”

“No.”

“How could you miss?”

I turned my head to find the wry smile, but it wasn’t there, like she was actually disappointed that I hadn’t come brandishing a gun.

“Did he offer you a job?” she said.

“Yes.”

“Did you take it?”

“No.”

“He pays quite well.”

“He thought my refusal was a negotiating ploy and tried to give me a figure, but I wouldn’t let him. I told him the number would just give me indigestion.”

“And you said no.”

“I would like to say I turned down his offer on principle, but that would be a lie. The only pure principle I stand upon is to never turn down money on principle.”

She narrowed her eyes, like she was looking for something in my face. “Then why?”

“Because I know a chimera when I don’t see one.”

“He’d come through,” said Melanie. “As he likes to remind us, his word is his bond.”

“Oh, I think his bond will be higher than that,” I said. In the distance we could just make out the faintest rise of a single siren, and then a second.

“There must be a fire somewhere,” said Melanie.

“There’s no fire,” I said.

“So you didn’t rush all this way to shoot him in the gut, and you didn’t rush all this way to become his bagman. What did you rush all this way for?”

“To personally serve wrongful death lawsuits I filed on behalf of the families of Jessica Barnes and Amanda Duddleman.”

“Jesus, Victor, you are a peach.”

“Truth is, the joke’s on me. If I had known he was going to offer me extravagant wealth to carry his bag, I might have played this thing differently. I might have gone out of my way not to go out of my way in finding answers. Who knows all I wouldn’t have done for his money. But he didn’t find me and make me an offer, so I didn’t let two murders slide. And here I am, forced to make my money the old-fashioned way, by suing the bastard.”

“My poor baby. How’d he take it?”

“His reaction was a little raw.”

As the sirens grew louder, we could make out the flash of red and blue coming ever closer in the dimming Montauk sky.

“Who’s coming for him?” said Melanie.

“McDeiss.”

“Does our detective have the goods?”

“Oh, yes,” I said. “I was there when he got them.”

I had known someone was running Stony for the benefit of the Big Butter, and I’d assumed it wouldn’t be Melanie—she’s smart enough to avoid the real hard-core muck—and so the question had been who. And then Stony mentioned the snivelly little voice of the guy giving him his orders and I immediately knew who the bastard was. So after that scene of blood and death in Lancaster, McDeiss and I went to pay a visit to Mrs. Devereaux. When we told her all of what her dapper in-house lawyer was involved in, and let her know how implicated she might be by his crimes, she was so horrified that she slapped Reginald’s face once, twice, three times before McDeiss grabbed the little vixen away. Connie always did like her stuff rough. And that spurt of violence was enough to break Reginald. Out it all spilled: How Grosset had hired him to be his conduit for illegal money. How Grosset had pushed him to hire Colin Frost to get rid of Jessica Barnes, because she was blackmailing his boy DeMathis. And how Grosset, even as he hedged his bets by buying Bettenhauser, had urged Reginald to give Ossana DeMathis anything she wanted to keep a crucial vote on Ways and Means in his stable, which meant hiring Frost again to get rid of Duddleman. It was enough for McDeiss to get an indictment, and for me to file my lawsuits, and for Sloane to get his story, and for Norto
n Grosset to be laid out like the roasted suckling pig that he was.

“You want to get a drink and tell me about it?” said Melanie. “And maybe catch a little dinner on the firm?”

“You’re not going inside that house to fight tooth and claw for each of your client’s constitutional rights?”

“I’d rather murder a plate of oysters.”

“Can we at least see the show first?”

“Dinner and a show,” said Melanie. “Dearheart, you do know how to woo a girl.”

The first one out of that bungalow, with the cop sirens growing louder, but before the cop cars themselves had turned the final corner and crested the final hill, was Charlotte, lovely young Charlotte, with her long legs and high boots and a hastily packed bag, clothes leaking from the opening like regrets. On my way down the stairs, after having slapped the envelope containing the complaints and the summonses onto Grosset’s ample and naked belly, I had confided to sweet Charlotte that it might be time to head on home. I figured that anyone brutally ambitious enough to sleep with Grosset was ambitious enough not to go down with the listing ship. Now she darted from the house with her head down but eyes alert, scanning the street for trouble. She stopped when she saw me and gave the briefest of nods. I couldn’t help myself from giving her the “Call me” sign. Without responding she turned away from the rising tide of sirens and hurried up the hill to some sort of safety.

“Nice-looking girl,” said Melanie. “She going to call?”

“Not a chance,” I said.

A moment later, the garage door started rising.

“What does he drive, a Beemer?” I said.

“Remember who you’re dealing with.”

“A Porsche then?”

“That’s for the low-level quants who do his bidding. Norton drives a Lamborghini.”

“Fast?”

“It will make any cop cars chasing look like they’re going in reverse. At least until he hits a tree.”

As the driveway door continued to rise, the sirens grew ever louder. Inside the garage, we could now make out the red snub-nosed front of the sports car. The car rumbled and shook in place, like it was scraping its hooves on the garage floor.

Two cop cars, one after the next and each with lights flashing and sirens screaming, made the turn at speed, leaving a gap between tire and asphalt as they crested the hill. The garage door rose. The sound of angry engines and excited sirens swirled around us as the cop cars thumped back down onto the roadway. When the garage door was high enough, the Lamborghini spun its wheels into smoke before it charged madly out of the garage.

And then it was all a matter of sound and fury:

The sirens still rising.

The roar of the Lamborghini’s engine as the sleek monster leaped forward.

The shriek of a cop car’s brakes as it jammed to a stop at the mouth of the driveway.

The bang-crash of too much money slamming nose-first into too much authority, sending both Lamborghini and Impala spinning, squealing into the street amidst shards of glass and fiberglass and steel that flew about like bats before clattering onto the road.

“Oh my,” said Melanie in response to the violence, as if something sexual had just come over her. “I do so love a smashup.”

When the cars had spun to a stop, engines still roaring beneath the cloud of sirens and smoke, the gull-wing door of the sports car opened and out stumbled a still-naked Norton Grosset, golden sunglasses askew. As he began to run, leather sandals slapping on the ground, saggy roasted flesh flopping like a sack of live fish on dry land, he looked back at us with terror in his eyes.

It was a ludicrously slow sprint, ungainly and wholly ineffective, and Grosset wasn’t twelve strides down the street before he dropped to his knees and gasped for breath. The first cop to reach him didn’t even have to run. A few moments later Grosset’s hands were cuffed behind his back and he was being yanked to standing.

“Melanie,” he called out, as he was being pulled to his feet. “Victor. Look at what’s happening. Police brutality. Take notes on what they are doing. I need a lawyer.”

“Yes, you do,” called back Melanie, not uncrossing her arms, not budging off the car.

“Make them take these cuffs off of me.”

“I’d like to, Norton, but I don’t actually represent you. I represent a number of your corporate entities in which there are minority shareholders. In these circumstances, I perceive representing you in a criminal case would constitute a conflict of interest.”

“Victor,” he called out.

“I represent the Barneses and the Duddlemans,” I said.

“I need help.”

“If you cannot afford an attorney,” I said helpfully, “you can have one appointed for you.”

“I’ll remember this.”

“I hope so,” I said before taking out my phone and snapping away. Tomorrow’s cover of the
Daily News
. I felt like Peter Parker.

While we were having this pleasant little colloquy, McDeiss climbed from one of the cop cars, shook his head sadly as he looked at the naked figure of the raging, flopping Norton Grosset, and then spoke softly to one of the uniformed cops.

“Take him inside and get him dressed,” the uniformed cop called out.

“Thank God,” said another of the uniforms.

After Grosset had been led unsteadily back into his house, McDeiss put on his hat and ambled over.

“You have time to do what you needed to do?” McDeiss said to me.

“I did. Thank you.”

“Don’t thank me. I didn’t slow down a whit for you. It just took a bit longer than I thought to tidy up the package.”

“Detective McDeiss, I’d like you to meet Melanie Brooks, an old classmate of mine.”

“We met at the airport,” said McDeiss. “And didn’t you cross-examine me once in court?”

“It’s good to see you again, Detective,” said Melanie.

“She cross-examined you?” I said.

“And pretty damn well, too, if I remember it right,” said McDeiss. “You get anything out of Grosset?”

“He said he didn’t know anything about any murders, but then later told me he was not pleased about what happened to those women.”

“I’m going to need a statement,” said McDeiss.

“Did you get her?”

“We’re running her down now. Your pal Reginald had been using Grosset’s money to pay off a credit card that she’d been using under a false name. He showed us the statements, we tracked the purchases. She’s in a motel in North Carolina, not ten miles from the girl.”

“You ever figure out how she got away?”

“We’re still working on it. Heads will roll, I promise you that. We’ve been hearing strange rumors that Briggs Mulroney is back in town.”

“Imagine that,” I said.

“I thought he was dead,” said McDeiss.

“From what I understand, Mr. Grosset’s arrest wraps up this whole case,” said Melanie, “from the shooters to the woman behind it all to the man who financed the killing.”

“Apparently, yes,” said McDeiss. “As neat as could be hoped for.”

“What about Congressman DeMathis?”

“From everything we know, he wasn’t involved in any crimes,” said McDeiss. “At least any penal crimes. His sister shielded him. It’s up to the voters to decide on his future.”

“DeMathis? Bettenhauser?” I said. “Does it really matter?”

“You still carrying DeMathis’s bag, Carl?”

“It turns out I’m not suited for the political game,” I said. “The shoes never really fit.”

“Good decision.” McDeiss adjusted his hat and looked to the side so that he didn’t have to look at me. “Against all odds, you have too much character for it.”

“Don’t be nice,” I said. “It’s unbecoming.”

After McDeiss left, I turned to Melanie. “So you practiced criminal law before joining Ronin and McCall.”

“I dabbled.”

“You played me for a dupe from the start.”

“You ended up with a new tuxedo, those darling shoes, and some thick checks, so quit complaining. You want to get out of here and suck down whole beds of oysters?”

“Yes, please,” I said.

And that’s what we did.

CHAPTER 55

THE RED DRESS

I
t was at a seafood restaurant on the inlet to Lake Montauk, facing the Sound and, beyond that, the great heaving expanse of the American continent, where I learned the bitter truth about Melanie Brooks.

We sat on the deck and stared into the setting sun over plates full of fried calamari, fresh Montauk Pearls, spicy tuna rolls, over skeins of cocktails from the restaurant’s fancy menu, too many cocktails to count, black-cherry cosmos for Melanie and something called a Perfect Storm for me, made with vanilla vodka mixed with blood-orange and cranberry juices, which tasted suspiciously like a Sea Breeze. We laughed and ate and got amiably soused. And as the sun swelled over the peaceful Sound, I turned down a lucrative job offer for the second time in a matter of hours, which, for me, was a record.

“Are you sure, Victor?” said Melanie. “We could use someone with your talents at Ronin and McCall.”

“As a lawyer?”

“No,” she said.

“I’ll give you the name of a crackerjack bagman if that’s what you want, but what I told McDeiss holds. Here on in, I’m only lawyering.”

“That’s too bad.” She took hold of an oyster shell, squeezed a spurt of lemon onto the bivalve, and speared it with her little fork. “There’s opportunity,” she said before lifting her chin to let the raw oyster slide down her throat. Her eyes fluttered with pleasure; it was only the second time I had ever seen Melanie’s features exhibit some sort of sensual delight.

“Is that what got you into politics, opportunity? Because I’ve been wondering. The Melanie Brooks I knew in law school would have sooner spit in Norton Grosset’s face than run his errands. What happened?”

“You don’t want to know.”

“But I do,” I said.

Melanie picked up what was left of her cosmo and downed the remnants with a quick swallow. “I’m almost drunk enough to tell you. Let’s just say I had enough of losing to a rigged game.”

“We did okay today,” I said.

“It’s sweet how you still have such faith in our system.”

“Why not? Norton Grosset is behind bars, tomorrow’s paper will be full of his misdeeds, and I’m going to get rich off his carcass.”

“No, you’re not, Victor,” said Melanie with the sad certainty of a mortician’s accountant speaking of taxes and death. “Grosset’s lawyers will get you recused at the first hearing. You’re too involved. They won’t let you keep the cases.”

“So I’ll get a referral fee.”

“Don’t count on that, either. Grosset’s money is sheltered six ways from Sunday. It’s his game and it’s rigged. You should have shot him in the gut after all. And, Victor dear, you knew it was hopeless even as you were rushing up here with your precious indignation.”

I closed an eye and took a long look at what was left of the sun through my reddish drink. “Maybe I did,” I said. “But at least he’s headed to jail. And Ossana’s about to be caught. Those two deserve each other.”

“Two peas in a pod,” said Melanie, though we soon learned they wouldn’t be podding in prison together.

Ossana was holed up in a seaside motel in North Carolina when Armbruster and two cars of cops approached to serve the arrest warrant.
Knock knock. Time to go to jail, you sick murderous puppy.
It had been a routine affair, until the bullets started flying. Ossana finally let loose the full anarchy in her heart, even clipping Armbruster in the shoulder, before, with the final bullet in her gun, she achieved that which she had been seeking from the first: defiant self-obliteration.

“But it doesn’t matter what happens to Grosset,” said Melanie. “When one falls, twenty rise. It’s a Medusa’s head.”

“You want to know the truth, Melanie? I’m so sick of it I don’t give a damn anymore.”

“That’s their plan, dearheart. If enough people figure it’s not worth the fight, well, that means they just have a freer hand to get what they want.”

“And what’s that?”

“More.”

“More what?”

“More everything. Money, sex, power, real estate, peasants to carve and devour at their Thanksgiving tables.”

I couldn’t help but laugh. “My God, Melanie, aren’t you the bitter little fruit.”

“I’m in the belly of the beast, Victor.”

“More like at the breast.”

“When the corruption of a system is irreversible, there are only two choices: capitulation or revolution.”

“Who said that, your boy Machiavelli?”

“No, me.”

“And I guess we know which one you chose.”

“Do we? What about you, Victor? Where do you stand? Are you for the sincere and the deranged protesting at city hall?”

“I’m for myself, always and forever. I don’t want to change the system, I just want to beat it.”

“Our occupying friends want to beat it also,” she said. “To death.”

“Because they’re true believers. The only thing I believe for sure is that I have too much doubt to throw bombs. I am constitutionally able only to sabotage myself.”

“You should get out more. A few years in Legal Aid will change your tune. Remember when we were in law school and I used to worship Clarence Darrow and Thurgood Marshall?”

“Defenders of the damned and dispossessed.”

“I have new idols now.” She picked up her empty martini glass and turned it upside down among the other empties on the table. “Do you know of La Malinche, the slave woman who toppled the Aztecs? Or Mir Jafar, the Indian prince who betrayed the corrupt Bengal Empire? Or Ephialtes, who doomed the Spartans at Thermopylae?”

“All a step down from Thurgood Marshall, don’t you think?”

“Different times demand different role models. History tells us that every sweet piece of carnage has had its inside man. Someone needs to know the names.”

“Melanie?”

“You want to know what I learned from Machiavelli? ‘He who wishes to establish a Republic where there are many Gentlemen, cannot do so unless first he extinguishes them all.’ I think we should order more oysters.”

“I don’t like that word.”

“Oyster?”

“Extinguish.”

She grabbed herself another shell. “You’re paralyzed by your aspirations, Victor. You always have been.”

“Don’t forget what we are, what we’ve sworn to uphold.”

“Robespierre was a lawyer, too, dearheart. The thing I love most about freshly shucked oysters is the way you can almost feel them squirming as they roll down your throat.”

As I watched Melanie swallow whole another Montauk Pearl, the true change in her became manifest. It wasn’t the straightened hair or the thinned cheekbones or the startling red dress. The real difference in Melanie Brooks was that her sincerity had been twisted, by what we the people have done to our politics, into something virulent and dark, a nihilism waiting for the right moment to leap and tear at the corruption, even if it meant tearing out a hundred thousand throats. It made me shiver, and made me feel ashamed.

“You know how farmers used to burn their fields after the harvest to rid themselves of the unneeded stalks?” said Melanie Brooks—sincere-and-committed Melanie Brooks, always-the-best-of-us Melanie Brooks—staring out now at the setting sun in a way that the light reflecting in her eyes matched her crimson dress. “All it takes is a match. Look at the sunset, look how gorgeous the light is as it spreads across the whole of the horizon. Like the landscape is igniting into a great field of fire.”

First thing I did back in Philadelphia was throw away the shoes.