“I owe Chet,” he says, sipping on a Moosehead.
“As you might expect, this is sticky. Other than run-of-the mill porno, there’s no proof of anything, only rumors. Tim Hogan, the guy who runs the operation your client’s husband ripped off, understandably likes to keep a low profile as much as possible. The best I’ve been able to do on short notice is arrange for you to talk to an investigator for an insurance company who’s gone on record claiming Hogan hired someone to torch a competitor’s porno inventory. Since it was a kiddie-porn operation, nobody got too upset. Not even a civil suit came out of it. No criminal charges were filed, but this gal tells a good story.”
Harold reaches in his hip pocket, pulls out a worn leather wallet, and begins to go through it. I look up as two tourists, obviously husband and wife, their cameras banging against their chests, come in and quiz Birdwing on directions. He points upstairs, and the female grins and nudges her mate in the ribs. I can almost see the goose bumps on the guy’s arms from where I’m sitting.
I wonder if women get off on this stuff more than men.
Harold hands me a dog-eared piece of paper, and I squint to make out the address.
“She’ll meet you at a restaurant in Chinatown at five tonight,” he says, downing his Moosehead.
“It’s only a couple of blocks east of here. I told her it’s your treat.”
I think of the wad of fifties Chet crammed into my hand last night. My wallet’s so thick I look like I’ve crapped in my pants. I look at the address. Jim Chu’s.
“Is this a bunch of crap?” I ask, hoping for an honest answer.
Harold shrugs.
“You tell me. Chet’s a magician. I’ve seen him, and I’m sure you have, too, point so many fingers during a closing argument that you get cross eyed just watching him. Misdirection is every defense attorney’s stockin-trade, but he’s the best I’ve ever seen, and I’ve watched some big names work out here.”
I nod, wanting to ask Harold whether he thinks I should be trusting Chet to tell me the truth. Yet this man is not the person to ask. He’d be on the phone to him as soon as I walked out the door. Whom can I ask?
Bracken has been such a loner that I haven’t got the slightest idea. Maybe I can come in through the back door.
“He doesn’t like to lose. Did you ever hear the story about him paying back a witness who lied in a case of his?”
Harold grins.
“The word got around, too. You didn’t hear any more tales about informants coming forward after that with stories about what they supposedly had learned from his clients while they were in prison. Even if you didn’t know what was going on at the time, he was always about five moves ahead of you. I thought I was headed for some serious time, and before I knew it Chet had my charges dismissed and handed me a check that included my severance and retirement pay. It wasn’t until I moved out here that I learned he had threatened to have the biggest coming-out party in Blackwell County history if the prosecutor didn’t drop the charges. Shit, he would have done it, too. He believes in total war.”
“That’s for sure,” I say, watching Harold’s face as he relives some memory. Bracken never rests and never will. The odds that Chet has been planning out his moves in Leigh’s case for months go way up. Once again the feeling that I am being jerked around by strings two thousand miles long washes over me. Who is Chet trying to fool in this case? Me, I guess. But maybe somebody else, too. As soon as I get back, I’m arranging my own come-to-Jesus meeting with Leigh Wallace, and then Chet and I are going to the mat over Shane Norman. If Norman doesn’t have a solid-gold alibi we’re going after him or I’m off the case.
Harold stands and offers his hand.
“I’ve got to get back. Do me a favor and keep my job quiet. I’ve still got family in Arkansas.”
“Sure,” I say, and thank him. A minute later I am in the street, gawking like the rest of the tourists. I didn’t get a description of Jessie St. vrain, but I guess she won’t have any trouble picking me out. I’m the hick who’s already got a tan. Though it is cool and breezy, I could live with this weather. No humidity. After San Francisco, central Arkansas will be like a swamp. I walk around before stopping by my hotel to check in with Chet. The number of panhandlers is distressing.
We like our poor to be invisible in the South. With the wad I’m carrying, I could feed half the city tonight and lose ten pounds at the same time. Not a single Asian beggar so far. We’d do better if we turned over the United States to the Pacific Rim countries. Why aren’t Asians in charge already? Yet, there’s not a chance. The Pope’d have a better chance of being elected president.
“Sir, do you have a couple of dollars you could spare?” asks a shabbily dressed Caucasian of about sixty as I pass by the City Lights Bookstore.
Embarrassed by his politeness, I can’t even bring my self to acknowledge him, and hurry on. These guys don’t look like the drunks we have back home. The famed homeless, I guess. This very man may have had a decent job but got laid off, I tell myself, though I can’t quite bring myself to believe it. The prejudice or fear is too strong. A lifetime of being told that a man who isn’t working is committing an unforgivable sin kicks in, and I feel a familiar contempt welling up like poison gas. Only burns or blacks don’t work. With a rush of anger, I remember the day I was fired from Mays amp; Burton. I made off with a paying client and went into private practice the same afternoon. Not everybody has a license to steal. I turn around and look for the man again, but he is gone, melded into the crowd of tourists and locals.
Before returning to my hotel on Powell Street, I wander around Chinatown gaping at the Chinese (do they let Koreans in Chinatown?) businesses and walk in a store and pick up a Chinatown T-shirt for Sarah for the grand total of three dollars. She will like the strange script. For all I know it says “You’re dead meat, white asshole,” but she will be pleased that I actually picked out something for her myself. For the last couple of years I have gotten Rainey to do my shopping for her.
As I wait for my change, I remember a couple of weeks ago I heard a report on National Public Radio about how in New York Chinese immigrants pack themselves like rats into an apartment to save enormous amounts of money. Then, in “Doonesbury,” there were a week’s cartoons on how disciplined Asian kids are and how white kids just can’t fathom working that hard. If this is the future, it gives me the willies. The United States probably had its mortgage foreclosed on yesterday and I missed it. The best thing about the heartland is that we don’t know how bad things are.
A little tired, I go back to the Fairfield Hotel and try to check in with Chet, but his secretary tells me he is at a late lunch. As little as he apparently eats these days, he can’t have gone far, but when I call him back later he is still out. He probably is asleep on the couch in his office. I think of calling Sarah, but she will be at school.
Relax, I tell myself. Everything is fine. If I don’t calm down, before long I’ll be acting like a drunk who insists on making a nuisance of himself by calling his friends long distance in the middle of the night.
Since I have time to kill, I call Julia to see if I have any messages. She tells me Rich Blessing called. I try to reach him at Bando’s but am told he is running some errands and won’t be back until tomorrow.
At five o’clock I am waiting for a chair at Jim Chu’s, when a young kid who looks like John-Boy from the old “Waltons” series comes up and sticks out his hand at me.
“Gideon Page?” he asks in a clear, unaccented soprano voice. He is wearing a dark pinstriped suit without a tie. I stand up, towering over this kid, and for once crush somebody else’s hand. Usually it’s the other way around. Probably a messenger from the investigator’s office telling me she will be late. That’s okay. I’m enjoying the crowd, a mix of tourists and Asians, as Sarah has warned me to say. Rugs are oriental, people are Asian.