“Pretty amazing coincidence,” I smirked.
“Amazing coincidences always happen to other people. When they happen to you, they don’t seem so unbelievable.” She had a point.
“So O’Toole checks it out, gets in touch with you and sets up Azrael’s demise. O’Toole assures you that when the fox gets flushed she’ll run right to MacClough. How convenient for you that he owned a bar in Sound Hill.”
“Another one of those coincidences, I guess,” Barnum giggled nervously.
“I guess.” I wasn’t giggling, nervously or otherwise. “Too bad for you Azrael picked Christmas Eve to come to MacClough. If he’d been working the bar that night, things might’ve come to a head more rapidly.”
“Oh,” she said, “I don’t know. There were certain benefits to the way things worked out.” She put her hand under the sheet and on my thigh.
“Don’t insult my intelligence, Kate,” I mimicked the late Don Roberto, pushing her hand away. “Don’t insult mine and I won’t insult yours by asking if you feel guilty about any of this.”
“Fair enough,” the reporter agreed. “Now that you’ve got your explanation, when do I get my story?”
“Is now soon enough?” I turned her recorder back on.
I gave it to her from every angle, in baby bites and large chunks. She got an overview and the view from inside my head. She was educated about the smallest details including how I knew most calico cats were female. Ultimately, I told her about Azrael’s daughter. She hadn’t expected that. O’Toole, having stumbled onto the fact of her existence, was apparently keeping that tidbit for himself. I even suggested that her partner had been using his knowledge of Azrael’s daughter to blackmail both Dante Gandolfo and Johnny MacClough. I surmised that O’Toole wanted to squeeze every penny he could out of the situation. Whores, we agreed, were like that. In the end, it was that greed that got him killed.
“I bet you didn’t cry when he turned up dead,” I offered, bothered by the pain. “He was the only one who could tie you to any of this. And knowing as much about prostitution as you do, you realized it wouldn’t be long before he used that advantage to put the bite on you.” I rang the nurses’ station for some painkillers.
“Yes, Mr. Klein,” a distracted West Indian voice responded with all the compassion of a tombstone.
“My finger’s killing me.”
“Just a few moments, Mr. Klein,” was her reply.
Did you ever notice that no matter how modern the hospital is, the intercoms always sound like transistor radios receiving messages from Mars?
Kate Barnum didn’t bother addressing my conclusions about O’Toole’s passing from this earth. She just wanted me to hurry up and finish. And I obliged. I was, after all, a man of my word. After a few minor questions about minor details, she put her pad away and reached for her recorder. I slammed my hand down on top of hers.
The reporter didn’t have to ask with words. Her eyes did it for her.
“You got your story, Kate,” I yanked the recorder open and popped out its little cassette, “but it’ll never make it to print.”
“You bastard! Give me that,” she lunged at the tape and missed.
I unspooled the cassette and wrapped the freed tape around my bandaged hand.
“I don’t need that,” Barnum got up, straightening her blouse, “and I don’t need you.”
“If you print a word of it, we’ll all deny it. You won’t have a bit of corroborative evidence. And considering your previous misfortune with fabricated sources, I’d say you needed me very badly,” I confidently concluded.
“You’re a smug one, aren’t you, Dylan?” she asked, patting down her coat pockets yet again. “Do you recognize this?” Barnum didn’t produce a Chesterfield, but rather my safe deposit box key. “You should never underestimate me, Dylan. I knew if you ever found out about my involvement in this, you’d cut me down. And you might’ve been successful if you hadn’t gotten all dramatic and gone running to Ben.”
“Ben?”
“That old fart’s been in love with me since I was sixteen.” Her spirit soared again. “A twenty-five year crush will undo professional ethics faster than a speeding bullet. As a matter of fact, that’s about how long it took him to come.”
I shook my head in disbelief.
“What are you shaking your head about?”
“That key’s worthless,” I informed her and without much joy. “I didn’t make it back to the bank on time to hand in the signature card.”
“You’re bluffing,” she tried fighting the good fight.
“Go ahead, try and use the key.”
“You cocksucker!” she slapped my face. I grabbed her hand, but after the fact. “I’ll print it anyway. I’ll print it in the Whaler if I have to. I’ll drag that dead cunt’s daughter through the mud if I have to pull her hair myself.”
Holding the ranting woman with my good hand, I fumbled the call button with the other.
“Yes, Mr. Klein. It’s a change of shift,” the same distracted voice informed. “We’ll be getting there as soon as possible.”
“Okay, but could you do me a favor?” I was afraid to wait for her answer. “My lawyer is in the visitors’ lounge. Can you send him in?”
“Right away, Mr. Klein.”
Larry Feld walked in looking tired, but almost gleeful at the prospect of what he was about to do. We’d had a little talk earlier this morning and he agreed that what I was suggesting would be in everybody’s best interests. Everybody’s, that is, except Kate Barnum’s.
“Ms. Barnum,” Cassius began cooly, “I have in my hands a document for your inspection. I suggest you read it carefully, but to expedite these proceedings, I shall summarize.” I released Barnum’s wrist and she snatched the document out of Larry’s mitts.
“You will please notice that the document marked 1-A2A, dated this day, is an affidavit, in your name, stating that you shall never, under any circumstance, attempt to discuss and/or publish information concerning the lives of or details pertaining to the lives of the people you see listed there. In return for this guarantee, you shall receive a cash settlement of twenty-five thousand United States dollars.”
“You two assholes must be crazy,” Kate Barnum turned a ripe tomato shade of red. “I’m not signing away-”
“Ms. Barnum,” Larry interrupted, “though it would be a conflict of interest for me to give you legal counsel, I would respectfully suggest you consider what I am about to tell you before rushing to judgment.”
“Blah, blah, blah. .”
“Very well, Ms. Barnum, since you seem disinterested in listening to what I have to say, may I offer you my services, pro bono of course, in assisting you in the selection of qualified defense counsel.”
“Let’s see you try and sue me for libel or slander,” Kate Barnum retorted rebelliously.
“I wouldn’t think of it, Ms. Barnum. I have the utmost respect for the press and the first amendment rights which protect it from subversion. No, Ms. Barnum, I wasn’t discussing a civil action. I was, in fact, discussing murder.” I almost yelled: ‘Bombs away!’ “First degree murder, to be exact.”
“Whose, my husband’s? You two are really stretching. Don’t make me laugh.”
“I assure you, miss,” Larry could be fatally serious, “that was certainly not my intention. Let me come to the point.”
“Do that.”
“If you do not sign that document now in your possession within,” Feld checked his Rolex, “the next ten minutes, a Suffolk County police officer will arrive at your home armed with a search warrant signed by Judge Robert D. Lockheed. Upon searching the premises, that officer will find a.22 caliber hand gun. The handle will have been wiped clean, but when tested at the lab, the weapon will prove to be the gun used in the recent murder of Terrence O’Toole, N.Y.P.D., retired. I believe you and he were fairly well acquainted.”
“You motherfuckers!”
“Sign the affidavit, Ms. Barnum.”
“Sign it!” I chimed in.
“Fuck you both,” tears were ruining her perfect make-up.