Last Chance for Glory (35 page)

“Manhattan Executive didn’t, so I can’t see what your problem is.”

Joanna leaned on the desk. “My problem is twofold, Marty. First, you and I had a deal that included use of Manhattan Executive’s hardware, but the material I saw was brand new. If you spent that kind of money when you could have used our stock, you did it because you didn’t trust me. It’s that simple. Second, you came to me a few days ago, you and your new colleague, begging for work, work you apparently didn’t need. That visit was purely an attempt to deceive me.”

“So, I’m convicted without trial, convicted on the word of a cop and a politician?” Blake’s mind was spinning furiously. He knew he’d made a mistake bringing Kosinski with him to Joanna’s. The question was whether or not he could still deny his partner. “Are you recording this conversation?”

The question brought a quick blush, followed by an even quicker frown. “Do you know how hard I worked to get this account? Do you have any idea? Edward Green’s going to run for Mayor next year. His campaign committee’s become our biggest single client and we’ve only gotten started.” She stopped, glanced over at the maple chest, shook her head. “I did everything I could for you. I set you up, found you work, allowed you access to the computer. In return, you deceived me. I tell you, Marty, it hurts.”

Blake stood up, started to leave, then decided to make a final statement. “I don’t know a goddamned thing about Edward Green. Nothing, understand? But what I do or don’t know isn’t really the point, is it?” He took a step back toward Joanna’s desk. “Fuck you, Joanna. Fuck you and fuck your maple linen press and your miserable ambition and your pitiful pretensions.” He stopped abruptly, let his voice drop off, managed a sneer. “How does it feel to live with your nose up someone’s ass? To sacrifice an old friend because a client’s aide makes a phone call? If some high roller said, ‘Get the nigger out of the front office,’ would you fire Cynthia, too?”

Blake noted Joanna Bardo’s composed features and realized that she wasn’t buying his act. She’d report back to Edward Green as soon as he was out the door, maybe even messenger him a copy of the tape she hadn’t denied she was making. But that was all to the good—his denial would be on the record; his anger, though it hadn’t fooled Joanna, would at least confuse Samuel Harrah. Joanna had said they were after his license, not his life, which meant they hadn’t made up their minds about his intentions. Or maybe they assumed he’d been rendered harmless by their recovery of the assorted bugs and taps he’d planted. Either way, it worked to his advantage.

“You’ve lost your smile, Marty. Your beautiful smile.” Joanna’s tone was almost wistful. She pushed her chair back a few inches, then folded her hands and laid them in her lap. “There was a time when it could light up the room and now it’s gone. I feel like I’m talking to another person. You’re rougher now, meaner. Have you asked yourself where you’re going?” She stood up, crossed the room, opened the door. “Good-bye, Marty. I won’t be seeing you again.”

Blake carried Joanna Bardo’s final comments with him as he made his way uptown. He began by slipping out through the basement into an alleyway that led to Wooster Street, then hailing a cab and ordering the driver to circle the block and come back up Greene. Sure enough, the maroon Buick was still parked in front of Joanna’s building. The long-haired cop was slumped behind the wheel, his earring just visible behind the pages of the
Daily News.
Blake nodded with satisfaction, then let his mind drift.

Manhattan Executive had been home to him for a long time. Joanna Bardo, as resident mother, had nurtured him (and used him) while he’d learned his craft one step at a time. Now the tit had been abruptly withdrawn and he should, he supposed, be feeling some kind of separation anxiety, some sense of loss. But the only thing he really felt was the trickle of sweat running down into his collar. The cab, even with its windows open, was pumping out a greenhouse effect all its own.

Just a few weeks ago, Blake realized with a start, he’d been driving a yellow beast very similar to this one. He glanced at the driver’s hack license. Francois George. Or was it George Francois? The Taxi and Limousine Commission had a way of screwing up foreign names. He was Haitian, anyway, as were so many New York cabbies.

Blake had a sudden urge to ask Francois George about life in his home country. Had he driven a cab in Port-au-Prince? Had he left his family behind, his wife, his children, just to get to a country where most people despised him on sight? What had driven him, politics or poverty? Or maybe the politics
of
poverty. Haiti had been poor and the Haitian people oppressed for so long that separating the two was little more than a game played by American politicians to keep Haitians out of the country.

“Hey, check this out, man.”

Blake followed Francois George’s bony finger to a pair of middle-aged women strolling arm and arm along Houston Street. “Fuckin’ dykes. I hate fuckin’ dykes.” He snorted, shook his head. “Pussy-bumpers. It’s disgusting.”

Having destroyed Blake’s illusions, the cabbie made a quick left in front of a city bus and swept uptown on First Avenue. “Francois George, where are you from?” Blake asked.

“Harlem,” he replied. “West 152nd Street.”

“This your cab?”

“Me and the bank, we share it.” He chuckled softly. “I bought the medallion fifteen years ago, paid it off in eighty-nine, then borrowed on it last year and bought a laundromat which I’m lettin’ my woman run. We doin’ okay, between us. Lookin’ to move out, though. Out of Harlem to someplace safe.” He laughed again. “If we can figure out where that is.”

Blake left the cab at First Avenue and Seventh Street, half a block from Emilio’s Ristorante and twenty minutes early for his meeting with Max Steinberg. He went directly to a coffee shop across the street, took a stool near the front window, and ordered coffee and a slice of coconut custard pie. He was on his second cup when the lawyer stepped out of a cab and walked into Emilio’s. Ten minutes later, convinced that Steinberg was alone, he paid the check and strolled across the street.

“Marty, sit down.” The lawyer spoke without raising his eyes. “We gotta talk.”

Blake took in the slumped shoulders, the flat voice, and the lowered head. The famous wig lay motionless, like a golfer’s divot on a bleached white rock.

“You don’t look so good, Max.” He ordered a dry Manhattan, watched the waiter retreat, wondered why he was surprised, why his heart felt like a ball of lead in his chest.

“I’ve felt better.” Steinberg sipped at his drink, took a deep breath, then finally met Blake’s eyes. “Let’s make this short and sweet,” he said. “I’m pulling out. I got no choice.”

“Really? And what happened to, ‘Steinberg never backs down’?”

Blake caught a glimmer of Steinberg’s customary fire, watched it die out as quickly as it had appeared. The lawyer was so thoroughly beaten that Blake actually felt sorry for him. Steinberg would carry this defeat to the grave.

“I don’t have a choice,” he repeated. “They got me by the balls.”

Blake leaned back as the waiter set his drink on the table. He looked at it for a moment, then drained the glass and ordered another. “I take it you haven’t contacted a reporter, haven’t gotten started.”

Steinberg shook his head. “No, nothing. They’ve been on me since right after the last time we spoke.” He looked down at his hands. “Something I did a few years ago. With a client. Before I decided to clean up my act. I shouldn’t have, but I took a chance. Christ, Marty, I thought it was forgotten, but the bastards had it all the time.”

“Then why didn’t they try to blackmail you? Isn’t blackmail part of their game?”

“They said …”

“Who, Max. Name the name.”

“Thomas Brannigan.”

“Then you didn’t even rate a visit from the big man.”

“No, not even that. They swatted me like a fly.” Steinberg finished his drink, signaled to the waiter for a refill. “You wanna know why they didn’t put the screws to me before now? Because they checked me out and discovered that I’m in hock up to my ears. If I’m not mistaken, you don’t get blood from a stone.”

“But they held the information.”

“Two more years, Marty. Two more years and the statute of limitations kicks in. Two more years and I would’ve been free.”

“‘Free and clear?’”

The waiter appeared with their drinks. He set them on the table, asked if they were ready to order lunch.

“I’m drinking mine,” Steinberg declared, waving the man away. “Look, Marty, if you think Harrah doesn’t know what you’re up to, think again. I’m here to warn you off, that’s part of the deal. If you make a move on Harrah, he takes me down, me and your boss, Joanna Bardo. I’m talkin’ about the first sign of a move.”

Blake took a minute to look around while he gathered his thoughts. Emilio’s was one of the last of the old-time Italian restaurants in the neighborhood, a hangover from the days when Italians actually lived on the Lower East Side. The walls were covered with yellowing photographs, many of them signed. Carmen Basilio was there, and Jake LaMotta, and the Rock, of course, Rocky Marciano. Vic Damone had a place of honor above the polished cappuccino machine, next to Robert DeNiro, Sly Stallone, and Lou Costello. Oddly, Frank Sinatra was missing from the pantheon.

“So where’s the Chairman of the Board?” Blake asked, a half-smile playing at the corners of his mouth.

“The what?”

“The Chairman of the Board, Max. Frank. Where the fuck is Frank?”

Steinberg finally lost his temper. “You’re crazy, Blake. I expected it from the drunk, Kosinski, but I thought you had more sense.”

“I guess I fooled the both of us.” Blake pulled his chair into the table and leaned forward. The smile had become a sneer. “So what’s the deal, Max. If I decide to forget, what’s in it for me?”

“You get to keep your license. The bugs and taps are forgotten.”

“And Bell? What’s in it for Bell? Or do we have to turn our backs the day he comes floating up in the river?”

When Steinberg didn’t reply, Blake changed the subject. “Max, you remember a cop named Matthew Blake. I believe you ran into him eight or ten years ago.”

“Did I represent him? Was he related to you?”

Blake took a moment to study the lawyer’s expression. Steinberg’s hooded eyes were meant to conceal, that was obvious enough, but the edge of a smile played at the corners of his mouth.

“You’ve known about it the whole time, isn’t that right?” Blake expected a
pro forma
denial, but Steinberg’s face remained set. “The thing is, Max, you shouldn’t lie to me here. The way I’m feeling, I’d just as soon make you eat that wig.”

Steinberg shrugged, spread his hands. “At first I didn’t make the connection—Blake, it’s a common name—but then it came back to me, so I checked it out and discovered you were the son. Life is full of surprises, right? Still, when I asked myself what difference it made, I came up blank, so I kept my mouth shut. You’re not your father.”

Blake drained his glass, paused to allow the fire in his belly to flare up into his hands and face. “Your client, the druggie, what was her name?”

“Chantel McKendrick.”

“She said my father raped her.”

“That’s right.”

“And you pressed the complaint.”

“Whatta you think, Marty? You think I just took her word for it? Anything to win a case?” Steinberg put his hands on the table, leaned forward until his face was a foot from Blake’s. “The first thing I did,
boychick,
was put her on a polygraph and make her repeat every detail.
Shtup
by fucking
shtup.
Then I made her do it again; then I took her through it backwards.”

“And she passed?”

“With flying colors.” The lawyer’s eyes glowed triumphantly. It was the look of an athlete who’s somehow managed to salvage victory out of defeat, a battered fighter amazed to find his opponent on the canvas. “But, hey, why should anyone be surprised? It’s a common occurrence, right?”

Blake stood up. “Yeah,” he admitted, “it happens every day. Well, duty calls.”

By the time he was safely installed in a cab, Blake was already contemplating his next move. He wouldn’t go back to pick up the Taurus. What was the point? No, what he had to do was find a car-rental agency that’d accept cash, then get out to Kosinski and break the bad news. Kosinski wouldn’t sit still, of course. He couldn’t, now that the end had drifted out of sight. Well, maybe a kevlar vest would give him a fighting chance. And maybe he could try a rosary blessed by the pope.

“Y
A KNOW THAT GUY
with the white hair?” Emily Caruso asked Bell Kosinski. “I used to see him on the television sometimes.”

Father Tim pondered the question for a moment, his fingers reflexively stroking his chin. “Bishop Fulton J. Sheen,” he finally said, pronouncing each word carefully as he approached the end of a typical Cryders evening.

“For chrissake, Bell, would ya tell this booze hound to shut his face?” She turned away from Kosinski, turned to glare at the retired priest. “Do I look like I’m talkin’ to you? Do I look like the kinda person would waste their breath on an old rummy who never even one time in his life got laid?”

Father Tim chuckled. “I forgive you, Emily. As I have in the past, I do now. I forgive you, Emily, and I bless you.”

His remark had the desired effect. Emily Caruso, every wrinkle on her face jiggling with outrage, swung back to Bell Kosinski. “He’s mockin’ me, Bell, like he mocked his vows when he was a priest. The man has no shame.” She raised her eyebrows, drew herself up for the final thrust. “He used to drink in the
confessional.
I smelled it on his breath. What kind of absolution could you get from a drunk?”

Bell Kosinski nodded thoughtfully. “So, why didn’t you find another priest? It’s not like he was the only one.”

He watched the old lady’s mouth draw up into a sly smile. Her giggle was surprisingly girlish, a sound that seemed to echo up from the school yards of his adolescence. He closed his eyes, saw Andrea Fischetti, his first love, heard her soft laughter as his fingers slid between the buttons of her pure white blouse.