Pleading Guilty

asked her what she had in mind.

'What about the truth?' she asked. 'Isn't that an alternative? Telling the truth?'

'Sure, I'll just give Gino a jingle: 'Pardon me, Pigeyes, you got the wrong guy behind bars. I'd like to swap places with Jake.' Gino's already hoping for that.'

'But doesn't somebody have to file a complaint? I mean, what if it's all right with TN? I can explain this to Tad. Mack, I know Tad. Give me twenty minutes with him. He'll love you for scaring Jake this way. He'll think it was just what Jake deserved, having someone turn the tables on him for a while.'

'Twenty minutes, huh?'

Her face fell. 'Go to hell,' she said. She sat on Nora's old rose-printed sofa and scrutinized the spotted meal- colored rug, caught between anger and some scandalized sense of her life.

'What's your deal with this guy?'

'Not what you think.'

'So what is it? Pals? Sodality meetings?'

She went through a retinue of reluctant gestures — evasive looks, nervous fretting with her cigarette — always committed to protecting her secrets. Finally, she sighed.

'Tad's asked me to be the new General Counsel at TN. I've been thinking about it for months.'

'You replace Jake?'

'Right. He wants somebody whose independence he trusts. And who'll spread TN's business around a lot more over time.'

Tad of course had not arrived at the top by accident. He knew corporate politics, too, and this move was slick. Wash and his coterie on the TN board wouldn't have stood in his way if Jake's replacement came from G amp; G.

'Martin doesn't think the firm can survive without a big share of TN's work,' I told her.

'Neither do I. Not in the long run. That's why I was reluctant.'

Jake was gone now, though. Tad would make the change anyway. Brushy's course was clear. I saw the future.

'And what happens to Mack under the Brushy plan for the world, with Emilia as General Counsel of TN and G amp; G a wreck at sea?'

'You're a lawyer. A good one. You'll find work. Or' — she smiled somewhat, the shy-sly routine — 'you can be kept.' She got up and put her arms around me again.

I still had my cigarette in my mouth and I drew back with the smoke in my eyes.

'Wrong guy,' I told her. I broke away and headed upstairs. She followed to the bedroom eventually. She considered my canvas, the Vermeer mounted on the easel, before turning to watch me pack.

'Where are you going?'

'To the train. Which will take me to the plane. Which will take me far away.' 'Mack.'

'Look, Brushy, I told you. My pig-eyed former colleague, Detective Dimonte, already smells bullshit in the air. He said so when I called him.'

'You can handle him. You've handled him for weeks now. Years.'

'Not now. He's flat-out said he thinks I'm dirty. He's thick witted but he's like a cow. He always ends up in the right place.' I went to the easel. I thumbed through my sketchbook and threw it in the bag.

'Why, Mack?'

'Because I'd rather live rich and free than in the penitentiary.'

'No, I mean, why? The whole thing. How could you do this? How could you think you wouldn't get caught?'

'You think everybody's as smart as you are? The only reason you figured it out is because screw-loose here ran his mouth. You really believe you'd have seen it if I hadn't told you from the jump about how much I'd love to steal the money myself or how much I hate Jake?' 'But don't you feel bad?'

'At moments. But you know, once it's done, it's done.'

'Look.' She started again. She put her hands together. She lifted her pert rough-skinned face. She tried to sound even and rational, to look persuasive. 'You wanted to make a point. You wanted to get Jake, all of us, you wanted to hit us where we live. And you did it. You felt ignored, undervalued, wounded. Deservingly. And — '

'Oh, stop.'

'- you want to get caught.'

'Spare me the psychoanalysis. What I wanted was to do it. There's such a thing as infantile pleasure, Dr Freud. And I got mine. And now I'm doing the adult and responsible thing and saving my ass. Just like you're going to do very shortly when they ask you to account for five and a half million dollars which you said would be repatriated tomorrow.' I pointed at her. 'Remember the privilege,' I said. 'Attorney-client.'

'I don't understand,' she said and bounced herself off the bed in sheer frustration. 'You have to hate everyone. You do, don't you? Everyone. All of us.'

'Don't manipulate.'

'Come on. Don't you see how angry you are? My God. You're Samson pulling down the temple.'

'Please don't tell me about my own moods!' I'm sure for a moment I looked violent. 'Why would I be angry, Brush? Because I had such great choices? Should I have whored around like Martin to cover Jake's hind end? Just so Jake could ignore me while Pagnucci pushed me toward an ice floe, after I've surrendered my adult years to this place? I mean, how does Pagnucci put it when he bothers to justify himself? 'The marketplace speaking'? I forget the part of the theory, Brushy, which explains why the people the market fucks over are supposed to let the tea party continue for everyone else. So I showed some initiative, entrepreneur-ship, self-reliance. I helped myself. Those are free market concepts too.'

She didn't say anything for a while. I took off my pants and my shirt and hopped around in my underwear, putting on clean slacks and a pullover. I wore my athletic shoes. Ready to run.

'What about your son?'

'What about him? He'll fend for himself. Or live off his mother. It's high time, frankly, for either one.' 'You're twisted.' 'Sick,' I said. 'Hostile.' 'Granted.'

'Cruel,' she said. 'You made love to me.'

'And meant it.' I looked at her. 'Each time. Not something every fella could say to you.'

'Oh.' She closed her eyes and suffered. She wrapped her long white gloves around herself. 'Romance,' she said.

'Look, Brush, I've seen ahead of the curve from the start. I told you this was a bad idea. I think you're a great human being. Honest Injun. I'd share your bed and your company for the foreseeable future. But Pigeyes is now on the scene. So that leaves only one alternative: You have a passport, you're welcome to come. As I've always said, there's enough for two. The more the merrier. Wanna start a new life? My impression is that you're pretty attached to the one you have here.'

I held out both hands. She just looked at me. The idea, I could tell, had never crossed her mind.

'No sweat,' I told her. 'You're doing the right thing.

Take it from your old buddy Mack. Cause I'll tell you the real problem, what I keep coming back to: Honey, you ain't gonna respect me in the morning, not when you think this whole thing through.'

She eventually said, 'I could visit.'

'Sure. Tell Mr K. He'll love hearing that from his new General Counsel: I'm going to visit that crackpot who destroyed my law firm and looted your company. Face it, Brush, your life is here. But hey, prove me wrong. I think you've got ties. And' — I closed the case — 'I've got to go.'

I grabbed her by the shoulders and kissed her quickly, hubby speeding off to work. She sat on the bed and put her head in her hands. I knew she was too tough to cry, but I said something anyway.

'Let's not be mushy, Brushy.' I whined it. I made it rhyme. I winked at her from the doorway and told her goodbye. I saw Lyle down the hall, dressed only in the jeans in which he'd fallen asleep, groping to make something of the voices. Maybe he'd been roused to check out his dream that it was Mom and Dad, home again and happy, one of those dream things that never really happened. I stood on the threshold considering them both, enduring one