The restaurant was new, catering to the icy fashion crowd- ambitious cuisine, stark decor, an intense unpleasant swank among the staff. Artwork of a sort hung here and there. Glass dominated the bar to where it seemed to emit a faint, high sound.
Behind the bar, a television offered the morning news, a segment called “Local Edition.” A bit about hepatitis in the gay community segued into a helicopter shot of the ranch house, beneath which the words SITE OF GANGLAND-STYLE KILLINGS appeared. Shortly an Asian woman with bangs and wearing a peach-colored suit was holding a microphone against a blurred backdrop. The sound was turned too low for Frank to hear everything the Asian woman was saying, but he did catch the word “methamphetamine,” pronounced like it was a kind of napalm. Then the camera cut to a close-up of Felix, standing on his porch. Frank couldn’t tell at first if this was stock footage, a segment shot earlier or what. He strained again to hear, catching through the static bits of what Felix was saying- he had no clue, he said, what anyone was talking about. He mentioned something about a “doctor,” then smiled like a harmless aging redneck, gestured good-bye with his cane, and reached behind him as his wife, Cheryl, offered her shoulder and they hobbled side by side to the car. Going to the doctor, Frank guessed. Can’t get much more harmless than that. Unless you take a good look at his eyes.
Frank glanced around, to see if anyone else was paying attention to the program, or him. The bartender was bent over, stocking his fridge. The owner, a slight balding Persian in a double-breasted suit, patrolled the dining room with hands clasped behind his back, leading with his chin. The hostess, a thin blonde maybe thirty years old, wearing makeup so garish it made her look fifty, stood at her lectern, fussing with the brunch menu.
Frank reached inside his jacket, removed his hand-worn copy of the newspaper piece and smoothed it out on the bar. He’d given it maybe three dozen readings, feeling more naked each time, an effect only enhanced now by the television coverage. But the worst of it wasn’t the fear. The article talked about this smuggler just out of prison, a guy with a long and difficult name. It said he and Shel had been an item years ago, before they both went down on federal charges. Worse, it said that he was the man Shel had run to after Frank had tried to murder her. The article actually used the word “murder.” It also used the word “lovers,” referring to Shel and this other guy. It all made sense now, he thought. What a sick, pathetic, piss-driven fool you’ve been. This was who Shel was secretly mooning over all that time, not Mooch. She’d never said a word about the guy, not once in over two years. How many other secrets had she kept? How many times, when I sat there, pouring out my heart, telling her my plans- not just for me, for us, that was the sick part, for us, damn it- how many times had she really been thinking of this Danny Grab-Your-Banjo, or however the fuck you pronounced his name?
He glanced one last time at the picture of Shel, winced, then folded the paper over again and returned it to his pocket. Shortly a plump, redheaded professor-type came through the entrance, stumbling on the door saddle. He was garbed in tweed and corduroy, checking every face as he came aright, catching his balance. Frank watched in the mirror above the bar, biting his lip, heart pounding.
Spotting Frank at the bar, the professor made the proper mental connection and came forward ardently, extending his hand the last few steps. “I’m Bert Waxman,” he said. Frank detected in the voice traces of jug wine, chalk dust, arguments in the library. He’d sold crank to voices like that. “I appreciate your willingness to meet with me here.”
“You have to pay for my drink,” Frank told him.
They sat at a table against the wall and the waitress appeared shortly. She had chubby legs and wore a crucifix nose stud; a cold sore as large and white as a chancre filled the corner of her mouth. Waxman only wanted coffee but Frank ordered another double gin, asking it be brought at once. The waitress checked out his face, then spun around and vanished. Once she was out of earshot, Frank remarked, “I think I’d shoot my lips off before I let that woman kiss me.”
He and Waxman eyed each other briefly. Frank felt vaguely discouraged. Waxman was coming into focus, impression-wise, and he was exactly the sort of person Frank had been bred to loathe: educated, browbeaten, sincere. The kind folks run to with their inspired lies. A scribe for users. Like I’m one to complain, Frank thought. He hid his throbbing thumb in his lap.
“I’ve had a chance to think through the way you want to work the money angle,” he said. “This third-party thing.”
“Yes,” Waxman said, clearing his throat.
“Won’t work. Where’s my guarantee it’s not just smoke?”
“I think you can understand I’m in much the same position,” Waxman said. “How do I know you have anything genuinely valuable to provide?”
“Oh, I do. Believe me, I do. And it’s a damn sight better than what you’ve got so far.”
The waitress returned, bearing their drinks on a tray. Frank downed half his before Waxman was through tending to his coffee: heavy cream, three sugars.
“Look,” Frank said, “this source of yours. This Italian guy. I’d be careful if I were you. Strikes me as the type to say anything.”
“There were two police versions of events quoted in the article as well.” Waxman pinched his empty sugar packets into sections and set them on his saucer like tiny flowers. “You don’t seem terribly bothered by either of them.”
Frank blinked. “Meaning what?”
“Say what you like about Mr. Abatangelo’s reliability, it’s his story that troubles you.”
“Like hell.”
“You’re shaking.”
“Look,” Frank said, sensing it was time to invent, “Shel told me all about this guy, got it? I can tell you things about him his own mother doesn’t know.”
“His mother,” Waxman enjoined, tasting his coffee, “is dead.”
“Yeah, well,” Frank said, thinking: If she’s dead, she can’t contradict me. “Figure of speech, okay?”
“What in particular did Mr. Abatangelo get wrong?”
The room turned hot suddenly. Frank felt sweat prickling his skin. “Look, what I mean is, if I were you I’d sort things out a little, not just write them down on the jump. Use your head, you know? Ask around.”
Waxman nodded. “Go on.”
“I can help you there,” Frank said. “Unlike this Dan Slab-of-Mango guy, who wouldn’t know the truth if he had to drive it around like a bus.”
“The truth, which is?”
Frank was having trouble with his throat, it kept wanting to close up on him. Worse, little stabs of memory kept jagging across his mind’s eye and scaring him. Wetting his lips he leaned forward.
“The crew that smoked those three folks in that house last night? I can put you through to the chief. Absolutely. Nervy little fucker, mean as a hornet, got a birthmark right here.” He tapped his forehead. “Your article, it got the Mexican angle right, but, you know, it was kinda spotty. No offense. But I mean, that’s the problem, right? That’s why you need me.”
“Who is this crew?” Waxman asked. “What are their names?”
Frank shook his head. “Money first.”
Waxman twisted his pen cap, leaned forward and asked, “Do you concede that you were with the Briscoe twins the night they were murdered?”
Frank grimaced and sat back. He shivered a little. “I’m getting a little sick of being blamed for that,” he said.
“But you were with them.”
“I didn’t do it.” Frank slammed back the rest of his cocktail, at which point he realized he had quite a package on. Everything but his skin seemed warm to the touch. Surfaces gave way a little when he looked at them.
“Look,” he said, a bit loud, “it’s easy to crap on me. I’m easy to hate. But get this”- and he prodded his finger into Waxman’s arm- “by the time those two got sniffed, I was long gone. I never touched them, I didn’t see who did. I liked the little fuckers, why would I smoke ’em?”