“Accordingly?”
He lifted his head out of his papers and stared straight at me. “We’ve been preparing for trial, Victor. Haven’t you?”
“I’ll enforce the settlement,” I said. “Judge Tifaro likes his calender clean, he won’t let you yank the offer back.”
“Oh, he’ll holler and shake,” he said, his gaze again upon his papers, as if I were no more consequential then a buzzing fly. “But it’s been over three weeks, Victor. You can’t expect my clients to wait forever. That offer has expired, it is gone, disappeared. It is as dead as Bissonette.” Then he looked at me again and one of his sly, diplomatic smiles spread onto his face. “However, Victor, I’m sure my clients would be willing to rethink the settlement and to pay what had been previously agreed under certain conditions.”
Here it was, I thought. Whatever the conditions, Prescott had been waiting to lower them upon me for a while, waiting as patiently as a spider having already woven his web.
“It seems,” said Prescott, putting his arm around my shoulder and leaning in close so that he could speak in his lowest voice above a whisper, “that my clients happen to be very interested in this case. They have made certain deals with Councilman Moore concerning certain of their real estate ventures and it would be very inconvenient for them if Councilman Moore was convicted here and stripped of his council post.”
“I’m not quite sure I understand.”
“Don’t be a cowboy, Victor. What they want is for you to keep staying out of my way. You do and, win or lose, you’ll get your settlement.”
“But I’ve been cooperative,” I stammered.
“Yes, you have, Victor. We’ve all been extremely pleased with you. And if you remain cooperative we won’t have any problems, will we?”
“This sounds something like blackmail,” I said.
“Don’t,” said Prescott quickly, his voice dipping to a ferocious whisper, his hand now squeezing my shoulder harder, so hard it hurt. “Don’t even think of using such language with me. For the rest of this trial you’re just going to sit back and let me do whatever I have to do. I want you out of it. The Saltz offer was generous beyond belief, we both know it, you sit back and it is yours. But you act up in any way and it is dead and you’ll get your balls handed to you at the trial. I want you silent and docile for the rest of this trial, that’s what we’re paying you for. You step out of line and I’ll absolutely destroy you.”
With his grip still tight around my shoulder he pushed me down and I fell hard into my seat. I looked at the empty jury box, the dark maroon chairs swimming in the tears that had sprung to my eyes. In a pleasant voice Prescott said, “I think we understand each other now, Victor.”
I didn’t answer, but I didn’t have to. We understood each other perfectly. Prescott believed he could read me like a comic book. He believed he could buy me for a mere forty thousand dollars, our cut of the Saltz settlement. He believed that for a minor monetary gain, and the hope of future deals, I would sit back and take a dive in the biggest trial of my life. He believed he understood all that burned inside me, all the hidden dreams and pent desires, and from that knowledge he thought he knew my price.
And so what if he might have been right, dammit, I didn’t have to like it. I thought I was becoming a member of the caste by going along, but Prescott had just dressed me down like I was a cabana boy. I had a half a mind to spit it all back in his face, but only half a mind. After all, what could I do, realistically? Disregard my client’s orders, defy the judge, try to slip in more references to Enrico Raffaello and his daughter’s sad and deadly affair with Bissonette? That would leave me with nothing but a citation for contempt.
No, William Prescott III had turned me into his cabana boy and I was helpless to fight it. What else could I do but sit back and take the money?
33
I WAS LYING ON THE COUCH in my apartment with the lights off, drinking a beer and occasionally banging the wall with my fist, when she called for me. I was banging in frustration at allowing myself to be bought, banging at whatever it was inside of me that kept me from fighting it. And I was banging at the way Prescott was playing me. It rankled. “Oh, cabana boy, bring me a drink. Oh, cabana boy, sit down and shut up and let me have my way with you. Oh, cabana boy…” I drank my beer and stared at the shadows of light that swept through my window from the street and bang, banged, waiting for the phone to ring. From the first trill I knew who it was.
“I’ll be right over,” I said into the handset and within thirty seconds I was out the door.
Even before my fall into outright whoredom I had been running to Veronica whenever she called. She was like a drug to me, an addiction, and even when I wasn’t with her, when I was sitting in the courtroom supposedly concentrating on the testimony I was not permitted to challenge or rebut, I couldn’t keep my mind from drifting back to the salty smell and soft soft skin and the electric tongue. Jimmy, preoccupied with the trial, still slipped out now and then for a quiet rendezvous with his mistress, though his nights of carousing through the city with his entourage were on hold pending the verdict. Whenever he was with Veronica I worked late on Valley Hunt Estates or whatever else I could find to suck up my time and on those nights, whenever the Bishops weren’t taking me out for dinner and filling me with wine, I would stop at the corner grill for my evening cheese steak and fall asleep to the brilliance of late-night television. But on the nights Veronica called I would hang up the phone and rush out the door and drive enthusiastically to Olde City.
For a while we had been meeting at bars for a drink or two before retiring to her apartment. There was something reassuring about that, a restaurant for a late dinner, a bar for a nightcap. On those evenings out we could pretend that we were dating, as if we were a normal couple in a normal relationship satisfying our normal desires. But after the rear window of that hatchback exploded in front of my face I grew cautious of public places. And then there was that night in Carolina’s.
“Oh, Jesus,” she said, turning her head quickly away from me. “Jesus, Jesus, Jesus.”
We were at the far end of the bar, drinking our martinis and Sea Breezes, sharing cigarettes. She had begun smoking on our nights out, Camel Lights, and a cigarette was between her fingers now when her eyes widened with a shot of terror and she said, “Oh, Jesus,” and she turned away from me.
I thought for an instant she was gasping at my face, which was a gasper, really, but that wasn’t it. Behind me was the entrance and when I swiveled to grab a look, whom I saw walking in that entrance was Chester Concannon. I spun around again before he could see me.
“Oh, Jesus,” she said. “We have to get out of here.”
“Would he tell Jimmy?” I asked to the back of her head.
“Of course he would,” she said. “And that’s not all he’d do. Jesus. He has a wild crush on me, didn’t you know?”
“No,” I said.
“He told me on one of our nights out when he was bearding me. We got drunk together and he made a pass and told me. Jimmy and me is one thing,” she said, sliding off her stool. “But if Chester knew about you he’d go nuts. Come on, follow me.”
Without turning toward the entrance she headed for the rear of the room and I followed, hunching down so I might not be recognized from the back. We entered a short hallway with two lavatories and, at the end, an unmarked door. Veronica went to that door and opened it. Inside were shelves filled with supplies, toilet paper, and towels. There was just enough room for two to stand inside the closet.