“What is it?” I said, on the verge of panic.
No response.
“Hello. Who is there?”
No response.
“Mom?”
Nothing.
After a few more moments of silence, I hung up. Wrong number, I figured, but even so, it wasn’t easy to get back to sleep. The call had jacked my heart rate, the scenarios of calamity were still flitting through my brain. Where my sleep had been fitful before, it became impossible now. I tossed and turned and stared at the shaft of streetlight that painted my ceiling.
It felt as if I had just fallen back into slumber when the phone rang once more. I jerked awake, noticed that it was light out, grabbed at the handset.
“What?” I said.
“Dude, about the car.”
“What car?”
“The red Caddie ragtop. Is that price firm?”
“What price?”
“It says here twelve hundred. I was wondering if there’s any wiggle room.”
“No,” I said. “No wiggle room, and no car. You must have the wrong number.”
“You sure?”
“Quite.” I hung up and looked at my clock. It was seven in the morning, I had barely slept, and I was due in court at ten that day. I tried to shake my brain awake when the phone rang again.
“What?”
“Dude, about the car.”
“Didn’t we have this conversation already? What number are you trying to reach?”
He told me.
“That’s my number, but there’s no car,” I said. “Really there isn’t. It must be a misprint. Please, don’t call again.”
I was getting out of the shower, toweling off, when the damn thing rang again. Still dripping, I bolted into the bedroom and picked it up.
“Yo,” came a slow, deep voice. “I’m calling about the convertible.”
I left a new message on my answering machine – “There is no car” – and slipped on my suit and tie. I stopped in the diner for a coffee, large, before heading on. I had just reached Twenty-first Street, and the caffeine had just started opening my eyes, when my cell phone rang.
“Victor Carl here,” I said.
“Hello, yes. Thank you for answering.” It was a woman’s voice, very proper. “I understand you have a litter of Labradoodles you are trying to sell.”
Sometimes, I admit, I can be a little dense, but suddenly I knew who had rung my phone in the middle of the night.
My office, when I arrived, was a madhouse. There were a score of applicants for the open paralegal position, with a base salary of $45,000, plus benefits, plus bonuses, all of which would have made it a pretty sweet gig, except that there was no open paralegal position at our office, and $45,000, plus benefits, plus bonuses, was more than Beth and I were pulling down as lawyers. The group of job seekers was standing in front of my secretary, Ellie, pointing their fingers at the large advertisement in the classifieds.
“I don’t care what it says printed there,” she was telling them, “there is no job. It’s a mistake. Go home.”
When she saw me, she raised her hands in exasperation.
I slipped to the front of the crowd, leaned over, said softly, “Sorry about this. Any messages?”
“You have seven offers for the Jimmy Page-autographed guitar.”
“Jimmy Page? From Led Zeppelin?”
“I didn’t know you had a Jimmy Page-autographed guitar.”
“Neither did I.” I looked around at the crowd. “I’ll be in my office. I need to make a call. Just thank them for coming and tell them all that the job’s been filled. It will be easier.”
“What’s going on, Mr. Carl?”
“Someone’s having a little fun with me.”
“With all this, I’m going to need a raise,” she said.
“Sorry,” I said. “After we pay the paralegal, there won’t be enough money left for paper clips, let alone a raise.”
I closed the door to my office, sat down at my desk, drained the coffee, watched the lights of my office lines twinkling. So Bob was playing games, calling me in the middle of the night, placing false advertisements in the newspaper to tie up all my phones. He’d have to do better than that, I figured, but still, it was annoying, and I didn’t have any doubt as to how he’d found out about my questions to Torricelli the day before. When a line cleared, I quickly snatched up the phone and dialed.
Whitney Robinson III laughed when I told him what had gone on that morning.
“You didn’t think he’d be happy, did you?” said Whit.
“No,” I said.
“Or that he wouldn’t find out.”
“No, not that either.”
“So there you go, my boy. What else could you have expected? It was a mistake to bring him into it. You are endangering his work.”
“Dentistry?”
“More like a ministry.”
“Whit, I don’t have a choice here.”
“We all have choices.”
“And you chose to act as a spy.”
He chuckled at my accusation. “I like to think I’m performing a service to both of you. Think of me as a conduit. I’m very fond of you, Victor, you know that. And he is a remarkable man, truly an extraordinary man.”
“He’s a dentist.”
“Oh, my boy, he is more than that. He is a sterling example to the rest of us. We all wander through the world spotting poor souls in trouble, and what we do is cluck our tongues in sympathy as we go on our way. But he stops, takes their hands in his, does something to help. I can’t tell you the number of people he’s helped in so many ways, large and small. And you are one of them, Victor, don’t forget. He’s helped you plenty already, and those young children you are so interested in. And he can help you more.”
“Sounds like a bribe.”
“If it does, then you still don’t understand. There is nothing venal here. He sees a woman in trouble, becomes involved in her life, and acts toward her as if she were his responsibility. You aren’t yet a father, Victor, but let me tell you from personal experience, a father will stop at nothing to save his child. Nothing. Remember that. But the extraordinary thing about this man is that he feels that same way toward total strangers. He sees a way he can help and he strikes out after it.”
“Like some sort of Lone Ranger riding the range, trying to lend a hand.”
“And succeeding, my boy. Succeeding.”
“Like he succeeded with Lisa Dubé?”
“He did what he could.”
“He killed her, Whit.”
“Oh, no, he did not. You’re being silly now. His whole life is about helping others. He’s not a murderer. He’s a lifesaver, if anything.”
“He killed her.”
“Stop it, now. You are upset, you haven’t thought this through. Listen to me, my boy. I know you don’t trust me as you used to. I understand that. Divided loyalties. But if ever you did trust what I said, then trust this: He didn’t kill that woman.”
“Who did?”
“It doesn’t matter anymore.”
“Even if I believed you, Whit, I still have an obligation to my client.”
“Save your client without bringing him into it.”
“But the only way I can see to save my client is to use him to at least create reasonable doubt.”
“Think about it, Victor. Examine all your options. You are endangering more than you know. Not just him, but his mission, too, and that he can’t allow. He can be a wonderful friend, as he has shown, but he can also be a most dangerous foe.”
“I don’t know about that. A few false ads, a few late-night calls. I can handle it.”
“Oh, Victor, my boy. Don’t underestimate him. Our mutual friend is just clearing his throat.”
64
I liked the image, Mia Dalton swaying on a hammock in a soft breeze, eyes closed, an umbrella drink in her hand and a rumba playing softly on the radio.
“The prosecution rests,” she said.