Mission (21 page)

I took a look around The Man's hotel suite. After all, I was paying for it. It was a three-roomed unit. The living-room had the usual sofa flanked by low tables and reading lamps, a couple of armchairs and the statutory colour TV. The covers and the matching curtains were a nice flowered print in blue, white and green. The bathroom was small but had everything. The bedroom furnishings were standard and colour-matched to the living-room. The bed itself was big enough for Bob, Carol, Ted and Alice. For a man who didn't sleep, or need it for anything else, it was a terrible waste of space.

When I came back to the lounge, Miriam had made herself at home in one of the armchairs. The Man had kicked off his shoes and was sitting cross-legged on the settee. I pulled the other armchair in closer, and told Miriam about my run-in with Ritger and Donati on the stairs and of my suspicions that they had pocketed the bag of dope to boost their take-home pay. By maybe as much as fifty grand a piece.

‘But that's terrible,' said Miriam.

‘Absolutely,' I said. ‘But, on the other hand, it saved me having to post bail. And gave you the chance to be a hero.'

She gave me her outraged citizen look. ‘You mean to say you're not going to do anything about it?'

‘Let New York's Finest take care of it's own,' I said. ‘We've got enough to worry about.'

She frowned. ‘Such as?'

‘Lots of things,' I said. ‘Loose ends. Little things that don't add up. It may not turn out to be important, but it worries me because I can't put my finger on it.'

‘Come on,' she said. ‘Surely you can give me a for instance.'

I leaned over and offered her a cigarette and got the use of her lighter in return. ‘I'll give you two,' I said. ‘I've been going over what Larry Bekker told me. The Narcotics Division teams working out of the Seventh Precinct are only concerned with
organised
crime. Any
arrests they make would normally be in pursuit of an on-going undercover investigation. Random ‘buy and busts' are handled by the Street Enforcement Unit based in the Twenty-third Precinct. Or guys on the drug detail at Manhattan South.'

‘You're getting too technical,' said Miriam. ‘What is it you're trying to tell me?'

‘The Man got arrested by the wrong people.'

Miriam switched her eyes from me to The Man then back again. ‘Maybe they thought he was someone else. It could explain why they didn't press charges.'

‘Yes, maybe …' I looked at The Man expectantly. He gazed at me steadily, but didn't say anything. ‘It's the dope that really bugs me. When Ritger and Donati drove away, they knew I was a lawyer. Even so, that six-ounce bag went missing somewhere between 42nd Street and the Seventh Precinct House. Let's assume Ritger and Donati stole it. Even if they didn't, they're involved. There's no doubt about that. But if The Man was just a face in the crowd, and they didn't know me from a hole in the wall, how did they know that, when I came down to bail out my client and found that he was miraculously ‘clean', I was not going to raise the roof with cries of ‘police corruption'?'

She tried to puzzle it out. ‘Maybe they figured that you'd put your client's interests first.'

‘But Miriam,' I said, ‘how did they
know
that? What made them so sure? As Russell reminded me, I'm an officer of the court. Those guys had ripped off a good fifty grand's worth of uncut dope! A kid fresh out of law school could have done a deal with the D.A's office over that. The Man could have turned State's evidence and walked. We might even have been Federal agents. In which case, the shit would have really hit the fan. No matter how you slice it, the same question keeps coming up. How did they know I'd keep
shtum?
What made them think they could get away with it?'

Miriam eyed me. ‘I think the real problem is that smart lawyers think everyone else is as devious as they are. Maybe this Ritger and Donati are a lot dumber than you think. And has it occurred to you that the bag might not have been full of dope? Maybe, when they opened it, they found it really
was
icing sugar.'

I frowned, then looked at The Man. ‘Was it?'

A smile crept into the corners of his mouth. ‘It was by the time we got downtown.'

I laughed. And that made him laugh too. It was good to know that he could turn the tables on whoever had it in for us.

‘It's not all that funny,' said Miriam. ‘We still have to face the fact that ‘Brax – or somebody – went to the trouble of planting that stuff. We know why. The question is how – or when?'

The Man shrugged. ‘It could have been in the store where we bought the wind-breaker. Or in Times Square.' He looked at me. ‘I was wearing it unzipped. It was pretty crowded down there.'

‘Yes,' I said. ‘And you took it off in the movie-theatre remember? You put it on the seat beside you.'

He nodded. ‘That's right. And a guy came in half-way through and sat next to it.'

‘I want to ask you something,' I said. ‘And if you can get inside our heads you must know the answer to this – were those cops real cops, or ‘Brax's agents?' I kept my eyes fixed on his.

His eyes didn't waver. ‘They weren't demons in disguise, if that's what you mean. They were people, just like you. But it's not quite as simple as that. All of you, at one time or another, act as ‘Brax's agents. He exercises a controlling influence over all your lives, yet most people remain blind to his presence. Because they are unaware of their inner self. Their
true
identity. They don't know they are held prisoner, and would laugh if you suggested the idea to them. Everybody has been brainwashed into believing that they are bound to the physical universe. That beyond the external world of sense-perception there lies only the fathomless void of non-being. And his most recent achievement has been to persuade the majority of the world that he, ‘Brax, does not exist. Thus enabling your materialist philosophers to prove, with the aid of ‘Braxian logic, that the concept of a Supreme Creator is a groundless primal myth.' He paused to let that sink in, then added, ‘By the way, I can't get into everybody's head. I told you up at Sleepy Hollow that it was easy to shut me out. If I've been inside yours, it's because your minds opened up to let me in.'

His answer was instructive but it hadn't told me what I really wanted to know. ‘Are you trying to tell us that there isn't a way to head off trouble? That you didn't know you were going to get busted?'

‘No. What I'm saying is that I can't stop it happening.'

‘You stopped me going down the elevator shaft,' I said.

His golden eyes fastened on me. ‘Did I?'

I held my ground. ‘Didn't you?'

His look softened. ‘Don't be misled by what you've seen – or what you think you've seen. I may have the edge in the long run, but there are limits to my power in the temporal dimension.' He smiled. ‘I may be batting on the side of the angels but we have been known to miss a curved ball.'

Tremendous.

‘So in other words,' I said, ‘all we can do is stand there and take it on the chin.'

He waved his palms upwards and outwards. ‘It's what the Twelve had to do.'

‘Yes, but you gave them a big boost,' I countered. ‘You put their brains into orbit at the Feast of Pentecost. When
they
got arrested and beaten, they didn't feel a thing. They even knew how to walk through locked doors.'

He shook his head. ‘I can't give you a magic wand, Leo. You've already got what it takes. It's up to you to learn how to use it.'

He was right, of course, but that still left me with backlog of unanswered questions. I couldn't get rid of the nagging suspicion that we were the victims of a well-intentioned snow-job. I looked at my watch. It was after midnight. I got to my feet. ‘I hope you don't mind, but I'm going to have to leave it there. It's been quite a day.'

‘Yes, for me too.' He uncrossed his legs and got up from the sofa.

I offered my hand to Miriam. She rose and took it obediently but her eyes told me she would have preferred to go on talking. The Man walked us to the door.

‘I take it you know about room service,' I said. ‘I mean if you want food, or anything, all you have to do is …'

He nodded. ‘Yes, I know.'

I gripped his hand. ‘Listen, I'm going to be in court all day again. And the same thing goes for the rest of the week. I'd like to duck out but it's a big case and, well – you know how it is.'

‘Sure,' he said. ‘Don't worry. I may not be here anyway.'

‘Yeah, well, just in case you are …' I pulled out my wallet and handed over two fifty-dollar bills. I was turning into a real Daddy Warbucks. ‘I'll call you between four-thirty and five. If you've got any problems before then call Miriam – or Linda. But go easy with her. You had her in tears today.'

‘I'll bear that in mind.' He bussed Miriam on the cheek. ‘Take care …'

‘You too,' she said. This time, her knees didn't fold up under her. But then, she was a New Yorker too. Give us time to catch our breath and we can take anything and everything in our stride.

When we reached the street, it was such a nice night, we decided to walk up Central Park West to my apartment on 75th Street. Hand in hand like fifteen-year-olds on their first date. But privy to the greatest secret in the world. I don't know what strange alchemy was at work but by the time we reached my front door, any lurking ‘Braxian passion I harboured had quietly disappeared. Miriam made me an ice-box raider's sandwich and we took it to bed with two mugs of hot milk. She claimed to have eaten but she still managed to chisel me out of the third deck which held most of the Polish salami.

Afterwards, we snuggled down amongst the crumbs and embraced each other lovingly. Somehow, it seemed enough. As if, in some as yet unspecified way, we were now different. Special.

In the darkness, we gently untangled our limbs and turned on our sides to sleep. I felt Miriam's body hug the zig-zag made by my own.

‘Leo,' she said.

‘Yes?'

‘You didn't tell me you went to the movies.'

‘Oh – didn't I?' These black-out inquisitions are a big favourite with Miriam.

‘No,' she said. ‘What did you take him to see?'

‘
The Sound of Music
.'

‘Ahhh … did he like it?'

I larded my voice with sleep. ‘Loved it …'

Before I left my apartment on the Tuesday morning, I rang The Man at his hotel. I could hear muted TV jingle music in the background. ‘Sounds as if you've been up all night. Did you see anything good?' I asked, fervently hoping he hadn't tuned into Channel J's Ugly George.

‘Yes,' he said. ‘One of the movies was
Five Graves to Cairo.
With Eric von Stroheim. It reminded me of a trip I made through North Africa.'

‘Don't you believe it,' I replied. ‘It was all shot in California. Listen, do me a favour. Muss up the bed a little so it looks as if it's been slept in. And do it every morning for as long as you're there.'

‘Okay,' he said. ‘But it only makes extra work.'

‘It's included in the price of the room,' I said firmly. ‘There's no rebate for not using the bed. Oh, by the way – ' I added, ‘ – there was something I forgot to ask you last night. Who were those three guys that came out of Russell's office as I arrived?'

‘Nobody important,' he replied.

It wasn't good enough but there wasn't time for a lengthy cross-examination. Miriam put her head around the bathroom door. ‘Give him my love.' I passed it on.

‘Have a nice day,' he said.

There was no reason to think why I should but, as it turned out, I managed to pick up Monday's dropped passes and get our team back in the game. So much so that Mel Donaldson, the senior man on Delaware's back-up team – who was a real worry-wart – actually told me he thought I'd done a good job. Not that I needed this rare accolade. When court recessed for the day, I knew that we were ahead
on points because my clients were happy and relaxed enough to ask my advice about getting laid. I advised them to hit the bell-captain of their hotel with a few bills. He was sure to have a line into the ladies that gave room service. Somebody asked me if I knew if they took credit cards.

I turned aside from their laughter, packed up my papers, and left them to it. The house rules for entertaining out-of-town clients allow us to point them in the right direction but spares us the task of procuring.

I got back to the office at four-thirty. Linda followed me into my room. I leafed through the telephone messages she'd put on my blotter then sat down and eased the knot in my tie. ‘No calls from Mr Sheppard?'

‘No,' she replied. ‘But I stopped by the hotel during my lunch break.'

I kept my head down and my voice casual. ‘Oh, yeah …'

‘Yes,' she said. ‘I picked his robe up from the cleaners.'

Her words didn't filter through properly. ‘You did what?'

‘I picked up his robe,' she repeated. ‘He changed into the clothes we bought while we were at the store. Then after I'd checked him into the hotel, I took the robe to a dry cleaners on my way back to the office. It's just around the block from here.'

I nodded. ‘I see. Did he, er – say anything?'

She frowned. ‘Like what?'

‘I don't know,' I said. ‘I mean, what did you do? Leave the package at the desk or take it up to his room?'

‘I rang his room from the lobby and he told me to come on up.' Linda raised her hands. ‘What's the matter? Did I do something wrong?'

I leafed through the papers in front of me. ‘What makes you say that?'

She shrugged. ‘I don't know. Suddenly it's a big production. You sent me shopping with him yesterday. I was just following through.'