False Allegations

file. You're a criminal. You went to prison. I think you even killed people—it says you did in your file. But he was sure you were the right man for this. It's so important to him.'

'What?'

'The truth—don't you understand? He always says the people who say it never happens are just as crazy as the ones who say it always happens. He believes this wom—In this case, I mean. I do too. And he says you're the man to prove it for him…If you can't break a story, it can't be broken, that's what he says.'

She turned her head toward the water, looking at the dark river as if it would give her strength. 'He says you would have broken me. That if you had been on the job, I never would have gotten away with it. Oh God, I wish that had been. But you're a…mercenary, that's what he calls you. I was afraid you wouldn't play square. That you'd take money from the other side and betray us. He's not a…strong man. Not physically, I mean. I was afraid you'd take his money and then just go away and laugh at him.'

'So you thought you'd…what? Scare me?'

'I thought if you knew…that I'd kill you if you betrayed him, maybe you'd…I don't know! I wasn't really trying to hurt you. Not hurt you bad. If I wanted to do that, I would have used these,' she said, one pudgy little hand going to the waistband of the sweatsuit. She moved slow and careful, taking out a pair of brass knuckles. Not fitting them over her fists, just showing them to me. 'I know how to use them,' she said. 'I learned to do it in…there. Some of those attendants, they…I wanted you to know, if you did that to him, I'd kill you.'

'I believe you'd kill me, Heather,' I told her. 'That's why I'm walking away. I got enough enemies.'

'You can't!' she cried, grabbing my hand. 'Please! He needs you. I do too. I'm sorry for what I did. Sorry for what I did to…him. And to you too. I don't care if you hate me. I wouldn't even blame you. I hate me too. Please, please…just take the money. And… whatever else you want.'

I had no map for this, so I went with the only thing I knew. 'Tell Kite I'll call him in a couple of days,' I told her, scooping up the feed–bag purse as I got to my feet.

I didn't look back.

The Prof was standing next to Clarence's Rover as I approached, a lawyer's black leather attache case in his hand. 'She rolled in alone, home,' he said. 'In a big beast. All white, smoked glass—a high–glide ride.'

'You get a look inside?'

'Just a glimpse, when the door opened. I tried to sneak a peek, but I couldn't see nobody else. She was behind the wheel.'

'Think Kite doesn't know?'

'No way to tell, Schoolboy. She parked a long way down. Bitch had to gimp it for a good quarter mile.'

'Yeah. That the stuff from Wolfe?'

'That's the true clue, babe. Pickup went smooth. Clarence copped it from that blonde with the doughnut– snatching pit bull. She was right on time.'

'Thanks,' I said, taking the attache case from him. 'How's this scan to you?' I asked, running down what happened in Kite's apartment, what Heather just told me too.

The little man listened close, head cocked so I didn't have to speak up, a habit that marked him as clear as a jailhouse tattoo. 'She knows how it's done, son. Stripped to freeze your eye, dropped the sucker punch before you could catch the lie. Can't be the first time she played that tune.'

'Yeah. Felt like she was going for it too. I hadn't stopped her, she was gonna hurt me.'

'You think pain's her game?'

'No.'

'You sure?'

'No. And I'm not gonna find out either. That's a freaky, dangerous broad. I think she was telling the truth. She wants this. Wants it bad. I think she's used to bulling her way through things. She's real…I don't know…physical. Maybe she works the bad–cop thing with Kite. When he does questioning…'

'If rough–off's the tool, she's a fool,' the Prof said. 'You got to check out the canvas before you paint.'

'I know,' I said, remembering. It was one of the first things he taught me.

'You gonna play it?' he asked me, not pushing either way.

'Man went to a lot of trouble,' I said, thinking it through out loud. 'Time and money both. It's me he wants. For this job, anyway. I don't know what he'd do if I pulled out, but there's no reason to risk it. We're gonna get paid, right? And some of that money's gonna buy us the same gun he's pointing at my head—information.'

'Yeah,' the little man agreed. 'I wouldn't want that Wolfe woman getting me in her sights either.'

I reached in the feed–bag purse, counted out five thousand and pocketed it for Bondi. Then I handed the purse over to the Prof. 'There's twenty in here. Five apiece for you, me, Clarence, and Max. Hush money, bitch thinks it is. I'm gonna stay hushed for a while. Near as I can tell, Kite wants me to talk to someone, see if they're telling the truth. I'm gonna do that. Then…'

'You backed, Jack,' the little man said.

I drove away slowly in the Plymouth, enclosed in the steel but looking out through the glass. Thinking about how safe the Prof always made me feel.

I'd come into prison a rookie thug, pulling armed robberies cowboy–style, ready to risk a life sentence for a payroll. The prison economy produces entrepreneurs the same way the Outside does. Pressure extrudes. There was this guy who was always just one beat off from the crime music the rest of us lived by. The Prof called him Einstein and, after a while, we did too. Einstein was always coming up with great ideas. One was books–on–video for the deaf: On the screen would be a person signing the whole book, like closed caption. Another move was Mother Nature's cigarettes: organically grown tobacco, no pesticides, rolled in recycled paper. He was going to sell them in health–food stores. The flash of his ideas always blinded him to the one little problem with them.

Einstein was out in the World once and finally hit on a winner—selling special limited editions of books by authors who never made the best–seller list but had real followings among collectors. He did it right: leather– bound, ribbon markers, marbled endpapers…everything. First time he tried it, he ran off a printing of five hundred, and he sold every single one. Then, of course, the genius figured he was on a roll, so he went back for a second printing. Couldn't figure out why that one flopped.

See, Einstein was a citizen in his heart. Only reason he kept coming back to prison, he was always using a gun to turn banks into his personal ATM, grabbing R&D money for his next project.

Einstein read a lot. I mean, a lot. He was always looking for the Answer. Anyway, one day he comes out on the yard, sure he'd finally found It. He just finished some book on the Civil War—it was all about how rich men avoided the draft by paying poor men to fight in their place. So Einstein figured this time he had the perfect scheme: why not let rich men who got convicted of crimes pay other guys to do their time?

He ran it down all excited, the way he always did. The first guy to respond was a stone fool named Vinnie. 'I wouldn't do that for a million bucks,' he sneered, superior.

But the Prof wasn't going to let anyone riff on Einstein. 'Yeah, right. You too slick for that trick, huh? Naw, you wanna keep sticking up your goddamn bodegas for chump change! How much you pull from your last score, Dillinger? Few hundred bucks? And what you doing on this bit, another nickel–and–dime? My man Einstein may be loco, but he ain't stupid!'

By the time the Prof was done with my education, I knew a dozen slicker, safer ways to get money. All crooked.

I knew this was one of them—but I didn't know how to do it yet.

I sent the money to Bondi in a plain little box, tightly duct–taped inside the brown paper wrapping. It's a big–time felony to ship cash into Australia, so I put the package together as carefully as a letter bomb—if the cops opened it at the other end, it wouldn't bounce back to me. I did all the lettering with a pantograph—no handwriting, no hands. For a return address, I used a sex–dance joint in Times Square. Maybe they'd figure some old customer was sending her a present.