Meanwhile they're taking my picture and fingerprinting me just like in the movies, so I say how about a lawyer.
"Make it fast," they tell me, just to be tough. I tell this cop, he's a sergeant, "I'm innocent till proved guilty, right? Well, I'm innocent, so don't hustle me. I got to look up the number." Brady's number is in the book all right, but that cockamamie secretary of his tells me he's busy. Busy? I'm gonna end up in the can unless I get Brady. So I says to the cop the sergeant left with me, "I got a right to talk to my lawyer privately," and he moves to the other side of the room, but watches me like I'm a crook going to steal something, and I cover the mouthpiece some and turn my back to the cop and I say to Brady's secretary, "Look, pussy, I'm gonna come up there and spread your legs unless you let me talk to him," and in a minute he's on the phone saying, "Were you threatening my secretary?" and I say, "Nah, nah, it was just my way of getting to talk to you." He starts to dish me that real busy crap and I say I was referenced by Tony Ludo. "Okay," he says, "you come up and we'll talk and I'll recommend somebody for you."
"Are you kidding?" I say. "I been arrested. I'm calling from the station. I been mugged and printed and all."
"What's the charge?" he asks.
I look to see if the cop can hear me. "Rape," I whisper.
I could hear Brady say, "Jesus!" He talks to someone in his office, I don't know what, and then he comes back on the line and says, "Koslak, I'll have to get you before a judge so we can get you bailed. What police station are you at?"
I tell him and say "Hurry," and he hangs up. "We wait here for the lawyer?" I ask the cop. The cop says, "Follow me," and would you know he puts me in the slammer to wait?
It must have been hours before someone shows, a fellow who looks so young I figure he can't be Brady. I say, "Are you Brady?" and he says "I'm an associate."
"What's an associate?"
"I work with Mr. Brady."
This associate ain't giving anything to anybody. You could hardly figure him for a human being. No sign of friendliness or anything. We're put in this tiny room alone and he asks me some stupid questions and then I put it to him, "How come you're so friendly?"
This young punk says to me, "I'm here to do a job."
"Mr. Brady know you're this friendly with the people who pay him'" I ask,
"If you have to know," he says, "I don't give a damn. I don't care if a guy bangs his wife, or his girl friend, or his mother for all I care, there's enough ass around you don't have to force it."
"Wait a minute, kid," I says. "You're working as my lawyer. You know the law. I'm innocent till somebody says I'm guilty."
"Sure."
I could break this kid's neck. I answer his goddamn questions, you know, where do I work, do I own the station, how do I know the woman, what did I do, what did she do, what was my alibi, that kind of thing, and then v.-e get taken b>' cop car to the courthouse, and there's this runt behind a desk who turns out to be a judge and he looks at me like he can tell from my face whether I'm to be trusted or not. I don't give him any crap, I talk respectful, and then this kid lawyer talks to him so no one can hear, whisper whisper, but whatever he says it works, and the judge says something about my roots in the community — what the fuck is that? — and names ten gees as the bail. Ten gees? But it turns out this kid's got a bail bondsman with him and he asks me all kinds of questions, how much I make, how come I don't own a house, what's the make of my car, things like that, and finally I sign some papers, and the kid is driving me to his office. He says something to Brady's secretary, she looks at me like she could spit. After I cool my heels for a while, wondering about Mary, what she's thinking about this, the secretary says okay for me to go in. I look around for the kid, but he's disappeared somewhere in the back, I guess into his own office, and I go in to see Brady.
Well, sure, I go in there expecting Brady to be six feet tall and he's a midget, I mean shorter than Abe Beame, and he's got these eyebrows that go all the way across the bridge of his nose, one straight black line. His chair and his desk are on a raised platform. I know guys wear boosters in their shoes, but he's got his whole setup up in the air. He says, "Sit down!" and that's what I do, down, looking up at him, and I tell him my story, and he sits there chewing on his cigar. I'm trying to figure what'll make him take the case himself, and I say, "Mr. Brady, I realize you're a busy man, but it's not like I'm a charity case, I can pay a retainer in cash."
"Five thousand?"
"That's okay."
"A check isn't cash," he says.
"I can pay cash."
"When?"
"Tomorrow okay?"
I swear I can't tell from his expression what he thinks, he just chews the cigar. Maybe he's thinking of pocketing some of the cash and turning the rest over to some other lawyer to handle me. What he does is buzz his secretary.
"Get Mr. Cunham for me," he says.
We wait. I start to say something but Brady holds a finger in front of his lips. His brain is on that phone call.
The intercom buzzes. Brady listens, looks mad, says, "Try Lefkowitz."
We wait again. Is he trying to pass me off?
The intercom buzzes again. This time Brady smiles. "Lefkowitz," he says, "good day to you, too. Question. How come the boss decided to put an alleged snatch invasion to the Grand Jury? Doesn't sound like him. That's right, Koslak. He's with me now. Who? Well, thank you very much."
That black line across Brady's forehead, it lifts up in two places, over each eye. He seems happy. He buzzes his secretary again, and says, "Get me George Thomassy."
To me he says, "Just have to confirm something. Take a minute."
I watch him. He watches out the window. The phone buzzes. He picks up, smiles, pushes one of the buttons, says, "Hello, George. How you doing?"
I can't hear what Thomassy is saying, but then Brady says, "You representing a woman named, let's see here," he looks at the yellow pad he's been scribbling on, "Francine Widmer?" Brady listens, says "That's all I want to know," hangs up, stands up, pumps my hand, and says "You're on. Bring the money tomorrow." He seemed so happy about his call you'd think Thomassy was a broad he wanted to fuck instead of another lawyer!
Brady buzzed for the associate. The kid comes in. "Find out who Francine Widmer sees outside her office. Boy friends. Doctors. Everybody."
Brady winks at me, tells me I can go.
When I leave I tell Brady's secretary I was sorry about what I said on the phone and she says she accepts my apology so that's okay. I'm so high that Brady's taking the case I could go right into that Widmer broad's apartment with a cup of sugar in my hand all over again. I know she's not there, and besides, I'm not stupid. I go home and I grab Mary by the right ass and shove her into the bedroom and without taking any of her or my clothes off, just ripping down her pants and opening my zipper, fuck her fast just for old times' sake! Whee!
Twenty-nine
Koch
Dr. Allanberg and his wife, bless them both, took me to Lincoln Center to hear Moussorgsky, and I come home in a cab, euphoric, a bit tired, happy, the music still in my ears. The doorman tells me a patient is waiting for me in the lobby. Who? I have no appointments this late at night, no new patients to see, and the doorman brings me over to a very short man sitting in a lobby chair and he shakes my hand and says, "My name is Brady, Dr. Koch."
This man, whose eyebrows go straight across his forehead in a most unusual way, glances at the doorman who has retreated out of earshot out of politeness, then says, "I must talk to you."