Mission (28 page)

The alarm woke me at seven. I yawned and stretched my way to the bathroom instead of doing my floor exercises, and postponed yet again my jogging session in the Park. I did however resolve to arrange a game of squash to compensate for this double lapse in my fitness programme, and finished my shower with the tap turned to ‘COLD'. My mind and body now braced to meet the evils of the day, I made a cup of coffee and considered the plan of evasive action which had sprung almost fully formed into my waking brain. It is amazing how you can go to bed wrestling with an intractable problem and wake up with the answer.

Morning light pierced the weave of the drawn curtains. I opened them wide and let the sun flood in. The street below was lined with cars jammed nose to tail. A woman in curlers, slippers and an oyster-pink robe stood on the curb near the door to my apartment building with a poodle on a lead. I watched her gaze loftily at the surrounding architecture while her mutt crapped under the rear fender of a blue Olds then signed off by peeing against one of the hub-caps. I suddenly became aware that the trees had blossomed pink and white. Some had already shed their tiny, confetti-like petals on the sidewalk. It's sobering to realise that there are times when you get so wrapped up in your life that you don't have a moment to notice such things. I've got time now, I can tell you that.

Miriam answered my cry for help at a quarter to eight. I recounted the highlights of Fowler's visit, the possible TV
exposé,
and my belated admission to a ‘professional' relationship with the missing Mr Sheppard. ‘I should have settled the bill with hard cash,' I said. ‘Never mind. Even if this Brenda Starr character discovers the tie-up
between Linda, The Man and myself, there is no way she can build a convincing casual connection with what happened to Mrs Perez and her plaster Jesus. And, remarkable though that is, I have a feeling that if word reaches Father Rosado's bishop, the ecclesiastical brass will move in to stage-manage the whole event. Which could include pretending that it never happened.'

‘Mmmm,' said Miriam reflectively. ‘That sounds like what the White House people call “the Best Case scenario”.'

‘That's right,' I said. ‘But you also have to keep your fingers crossed.'

‘They're crossed,' she replied. ‘Now, tell me the worst.'

‘Ahh,' I said. ‘In the Worst Case scenario, the shit hits the celestial fan, Mrs Perez is canonized, the dry cleaning store on 49th Street becomes a shrine and is visited by the leaders of the Christian Church, the statue will become a ninety-day media wonder and pictures of it will be beamed by satellite into the homes of millions, and you and I will be given white robes and be condemned to a life of lecture tours as Brother Leo and Sister Miriam.'

‘Do you have a plan?' said Miriam.

‘A tentative one,' I replied.

‘Keep working on it,' she said.

I changed the subject. ‘Are you going to be able to help me eat some of that food that's up at Sleepy Hollow this weekend?'

‘I'll have to call you back on that,' she said. ‘Two of our team are out sick and they're having to rearrange the work-schedules.'

‘Aww, God, not again,' I groaned. ‘You already do too much. You're never out of that goddamn hospital.'

‘It stops me feeling domesticated,' she said.

I heard the smile that was wrapped around the words and decided it was as good a moment as any to bid her good-day.

Before I left the office for the final session in court, I agonised briefly over whether I should have a word with Linda about a possible visit from Gale McDonald. I decided against it. She'd worked for me long enough to know the rules about questions from outsiders. If I told her to say nothing she might respond self-consciously to any questioning. If McDonald got the impression that she was covering up for me, it would only create further difficulties. And Linda would start asking questions too. The dangers, if any, lay in Linda's reaction to what Gale McDonald might choose to tell her about Mrs Perez's miraculous encounter. Given her previous
emotional response to The Man, there was no knowing what the news of bleeding statues and visions of Golgotha might do to her lapsed Catholic conscience.

What had happened so far only confirmed what I already knew: lies beget more lies; slowly and inexorably one becomes trapped in a spreading web of deceit. In my experience, if deception was necessary, the best thing was to say as little as possible; the next best thing was the creative use of the truth, something that lawyers excel at.

The last day in court was taken up by my closing speech and that of defending counsel. Despite the distractions and pressures of external events, I thought I managed to sum up our case with admirable cogency but the bench, in its wisdom, decided to withhold judgement until after the weekend because of the complex technical nature of much of the evidence. We were directed to re-assemble at ten o'clock on the following Tuesday. I had a strong suspicion that the judge, who kept a forty-foot yacht up at Cape Cod, wanted to get away early to beat the traffic.

As the proceedings came to an end, the judge's clerk passed me a message to ring the office. I took leave of my clients, accepted their optimistic assessment of the eventual judgement with a modest shrug and left them to argue over whether they should go home for the weekend, invite their wives into town, or stick with the phone numbers their bell captain had come up with.

I rang Linda from a payphone in the corridor. She told me that a Ms Gale McDonald from Channel Eight was awaiting my return.

‘What does she want?' I asked, as if I didn't know.

‘She didn't say,' replied Linda. ‘Maybe you're about to become a celebrity.'

‘That's all I need,' I said sourly. In my present paranoid state, remarks like that were too close for comfort. ‘Tell her I'll be back in about thirty minutes. Meanwhile send her out for a cup of coffee. I don't want her getting under people's feet. Especially Joe's.'

On the way back to the office, I stopped off at a bookstore specialising in voluminous works on esoteric religions, arcane wisdom, and illustrated manuals on how to screw your way to instant enlightenment. It was one of those places which stocked something for all tastes. Everything in fact from the
Bhagavad-gita
to
The Bermuda Triangle.
I bought a paperback reprint of Moses de Leon's
Zohar,
another on Gnosticism, and a second-hand volume on Jewish mystics.

The cab dropped me off level with the coffee shop which is adjacent to the entrance to our building. As I stepped out of the swing doors into the hallway, a voice behind me said, ‘Leo Resnick?'

I turned to find a girl in her mid-twenties standing behind me. The penny dropped. ‘Gale McDonald, Channel Eight …'

‘Right.' She gave me a brief, firm handshake.

I led the way to the elevators. ‘Did the police give you my picture?'

‘No,' she said. ‘Jeff Fowler told me roughly what you looked like. I was in the coffee shop when your cab pulled up. Something told me it was you.' She shrugged.

We stepped into the elevator. ‘Do you always follow up your hunches?' I asked.

She smiled. ‘That's what makes a good reporter.'

Terrific. Not only was I saddled with a young kid looking for the big break, I'd drawn one that was psychic.

I gave her the once-over as we lapsed into silence for the climb to the twenty-second floor. McD was a compact five and a half foot package with a Liza Minelli crop of auburn hair and blue bug-eye shades. She wore a Highland-tweedy three-piece trouser-suit with a matching Professor Higgins hat, a white silk shirt and square-toed boots with sensible heels. The only things missing were the pipe and a tie.

‘Ahh, you've met,' said Linda, as we walked into her office.

I nodded. ‘Were there any calls for me?'

Linda ran quickly through the telephone log. There had been eight calls from clients, only two of which she hadn't been able to deal with. ‘Oh,' she added. ‘Jim Leander can't make that squash date tonight. He has to spend the weekend on the Coast with one of his authors. But Monday or Tuesday at six will be fine.'

‘Okay,' I said. ‘Cancel the court.'

‘Shall I make a new reservation?' she asked.

‘No, leave it,' I said. ‘I may be tied up.'

Like to a stake, for instance.

Linda nodded. ‘Incidentally, did Yale have any trouble at the airport?'

I frowned. ‘Yale?'

‘Mr Sheppard. I mean with everything being stolen,' she explained. ‘His passport, and papers and stuff.'

I could have strangled her. ‘Oh, yeah … he, uh, got back everything on Tuesday afternoon. The airport police found them when
they were carrying out a random check on some baggage handler's lockers. Apart from the cash that is. And TWA found his baggage. He got it back just in time to catch his flight. Sorry, I forgot to mention it.'

I ushered McDonald into my office, waved her over to the Chesterfield and dealt with the two outstanding calls. As I watched her out of the corner of my eye, McDonald produced a note-book and a portable tape-recorder from her leather shoulder bag, took off her hat, opened a pack of those long thin cigarettes wrapped in dark brown paper and lit one using a butane lighter with a dramatically long flame. I decided that she would not present any real problem. Her studied appearance gave me the impression that she was more concerned with style than content.

I joined her on the Chesterfield and declined the offer of a brown paper cigarette. ‘What exactly is it you want to see me about?'

‘I'd like to ask you a few questions about a client of yours. Mr Sheppard.' She kept her eyes on me.

I gave nothing away. ‘Oh, yeah – is this anything to do with Jeff Fowler's story about a statue and the lady from the dry cleaning store?'

McD nodded. ‘That's right. Mrs Perez. I'm trying to establish what part Mr Sheppard played in what is, on the face of it, an extraordinary series of events.'

I grimaced. ‘I supposed it makes a change from commuter groups complaining about delays on the subway system and the foul-ups down at City Hall. Always assuming that this lady is telling the truth.'

‘Don't worry,' said McD. ‘I've thought of that too.'

‘Good,' I replied. ‘Before we go any further I want to make three things quite clear. First, my client's involvement with Mrs Perez is peripheral and quite coincidental. Second, I am not at liberty to make any statement which would breach client-confidentiality, and third – ' I pointed to the tape-recorder, ‘ – I'm not prepared to make an on-the-record statement in reply to off-the-cuff questions. If you want to tape an interview, I require advance notice of the questions. In writing.'

‘I see …' She smiled. ‘I guess I should have thought of that. I've never interviewed a lawyer before.'

I turned on the Resnick charm. ‘Jeff mentioned you're an out-of-town
girl. Whereabouts are you from, Miss McDonald?'

‘Miles City, Montana,' she said.

I smiled apologetically. ‘I'm sorry. Should I have heard of that?'

‘It's in Eastern Montana. North of the Yellowstone River and the Little Big Horn. Have you heard of that?'

‘Ah,' I smiled. ‘A high-plains drifter. Did you make it here in one jump?'

‘No,' she replied. ‘I put in some time on the
Reporter
in Billings, and with the
Herald
in Chicago.'

‘Ah, that's interesting,' I said. Even though it wasn't. ‘The only thing I know about Montana is that the girls have straight backs and strong thighs.'

‘That's right.' She flashed a line of firm white teeth. ‘They also have a good nose for bullshit.'

It turned out that in between learning shorthand and running copy for the Miles City
Star,
she had also been a Junior Rodeo Champion. The nearest I'd been to a horse at the same age had been a wooden mount on a merry-go-round at Coney Island.

I looked at my watch while she was talking just to let her know that the session wasn't open-ended. ‘So tell me, how far have you got with this story? Have you seen the statue?'

‘Yes,' she said. ‘And I've also talked with Mrs Perez, her husband, and the priest – Father Rosado.'

‘And – ?'

‘I tracked down the doctor who had been treating her arthritis.'

I nodded approvingly. ‘You've been busy. What do you plan to call your story – “The Miracle of Central Park”?'

McDonald carefully tapped the ash off her long brown cigarette. ‘I'm not sure I've got one yet. But there is no doubt that Mrs Perez is totally convinced that she met, and was cured by Jesus Christ.'

‘Yes, well, she wouldn't be the first,' I observed.

‘No,' said McD. ‘But she's the first I've talked to.'

Montana was not, traditionally, considered to be part of the Bible Belt but I decided that until McDonald declared her faith, or the lack of it, it would be better to display a sincere spirit of enquiry. ‘Tell me honestly, do you think this Mrs Perez is crazy – or do you believe these things can happen?'

McD took a long drag and thought it over. ‘Let me put it this way. I don't think it would do the world any harm if it happened more often.'

‘You may have a point there,' I said. ‘So – bearing in mind my opening remarks – how can I help?'

McDonald pursed her lips. ‘To tell you the truth, Mr Resnick, I'm not sure whether you can now. In fact, I wish Jeff hadn't put me on to the story. Like I said, I talked to the Perez family but now they won't let me bring a camera crew to film the statue. Father Rosado has backed out of a studio interview, and the family doctor has also reneged on his promise to testify publicly about the apparently miraculous cure of her arthritic hands.' She gestured helplessly. ‘The establishment is closing ranks.'