Down Here

gymnast. Or a sky-diver—she was still making up her mind the last time we talked. In your office. Where you have their pictures on your desk at an angle, so everyone who sits down has to see how beautiful they are.”

“Say more,” he said, not changing expression.

“A few years ago, a coalition of gay activists hired you to do some very specialized work. You brought me in to help with the investigative end of it,” I told him, not mentioning a significant fee that the IRS never heard about.

“The voice is the exact same,” he said. “But I never would have recognized you. Word is that you were —”

“I wasn’t. And I’m showing you a lot of trust, saying that, right?”

“If anyone’s looking for you, you are.”

“Someone’s always looking for me,” I said.

“Fair enough,” Davidson said, holding out his hand for me to shake. “But I’ve got a problem.”

“Which is . . . ?”

“You sound exactly like a . . . man I used to know. And somebody did call me about this case, or I wouldn’t be here tonight. But when I mentioned your name to my client, back in the pens, my client expressed some, shall we say, concern about your involvement.”

“Meaning . . . ?”

“Meaning, she didn’t tell anyone to bring you into this. So she wants an explanation. And some proof that you’re . . . who you say you are.”

“The explanation is easy. Just repeat that Pepper came to see me. With Bruiser—she’ll know what that means. Pepper didn’t know what else to do, and Wolfe didn’t give her anything to work with. I think she was going to just pro se it when they called her name tonight.”

“That’d be like her,” Davidson said, nodding. “But after we talked, she agreed that having me do the talking is a better play.”

“Good.”

“Now, about that proof? What else can you—?”

“Give me a minute,” I said, reaching into my jacket. I extracted a single cigarette, said, “Got a light?”

By the time I took my second puff, Max the Silent was at my side. An old army jacket covered a gray sweatshirt; stain-blotched corduroy pants and an abandoned pair of once-white sneakers were topped off by a black watch cap. But even dressed in a vagrant’s costume, there was no mistaking the Mongol warrior. Not once he got close enough for you to see his hands.

Max’s eyes were as flat and hard as the slate bed of a tournament pool table. And as true. Even with all the assorted humans standing around outside the courthouse, his ki was a palpable force, creating a circle of empty air around the three of us.

“Oh!” was all Davidson said. Neither of us had seen him coming—people don’t call him Max the Silent because he can’t speak.

“Good enough?” I asked Davidson, snapping my cigarette away.

“Absolutely,” he assured me. “Let me get back inside. I want to talk to her before the fun starts. I’ll meet you right back here, soon as I can, all right?”

“Thanks,” I said. “You need any—?”

“Later,” he said, walking off.

I gestured to Max that I had to go back inside. Shrugged my shoulders to say that I didn’t have a clue what we were going to have to do when I came out. I knew Mama would have already told him why I was there.

I took my cell phone out of its shoulder holster, held it up for Max to see. Then I pulled out its mate—a new one, never used. I held it against my chest, patted my heart.

Max nodded. When I needed him, I’d call. The phone I gave him would throb soundlessly against his chest, the vibrations telling him it was time to move.

I tilted my head in a “come with me” gesture. We walked all the way around to the back of the courthouse. There’s never a place to park there, but it’s custom-made for lurking. I pointed to the spot I wanted, handed Max the keys to my Plymouth.

With Max, this was a high-risk move. He could tap an enemy’s carotid with surgical precision, but he drove like a man who reads the daily papers in Braille. Still, if I wanted a getaway car waiting for me when I called, Max was the only choice—if the Prof and Clarence had already shown up at Mama’s, they would have contacted me.

I touched the face of the watch, shrugged again.

Max put his hand on my shoulder for a split second, squeezed just enough to let me know he’d be there, no matter when. Then he was gone.

As I entered the courtroom, I saw Davidson’s broad pinstriped back, looming over a young guy seated at the DA’s table. It didn’t look like the conversation was going well.

Davidson stalked off, in the direction of the pens. I found the same seat I’d had before, settled in.

The parade went on. Most of the cases were disposed of on the spot. Conditional discharges, ACDs— Adjournments in Contemplation of Dismissal, a six-month “behave yourself” deal—misdemeanor probations, time- served walk-offs . . . bargain-basement justice. They even worked out a few bullets—Legal Aid’s term for a year on the Rock. Even one day more makes it felony time, and a trip Upstate.

Occasionally, some brief argument would break out, but you could see it was only the lawyer putting on a show for his client. Never affected the outcome.

Prostitution, lightweight drug possession, simple assault, trespass, violation of a restraining order, shoplifting, DUI, car-stripping—anything that could be pleaded down to misdemeanor weight, it was all fair game. The felony cases that didn’t plead out all ended in the Kabuki dance of bail arguments.

Davidson came out a little before midnight. Walked over and sat next to me.

“They’ll be bringing her up soon,” he said. “They weren’t jerking her around on the paperwork. Just volume. If they held women in the Tombs, it’d be faster to get them before the—”

“It doesn’t matter,” I cut him off, not interested in criminal-justice reform.

“I don’t have everything I’ll get out of the DA’s office with my motions,” Davidson said, “but Wolfe’s still got plenty of friends on the job, and I made some calls, picked up a few things.”

“Such as?”

“The name John Anson Wychek mean anything to you?”

“No.”

“That’s the alleged vic’s name. That much I got from the court papers. What they don’t mention is that Wychek was a serial rapist. That, I got from Wolfe. He worked the whole metro area for almost three years before they caught him. Suspect in at least a dozen, plus a couple of attempts, but they only bagged him for the one. Wolfe tried the case, over in Queens. Convicted on all counts— rape, sodomy, abduction, use of a weapon—enough to max him, easy. And that’s what the judge did. Couple of years later, he appeals. He had an 18-B at trial, but for the appeal he had Greuchel.”

“Huh! That’s big bucks.”

“Right. But it wasn’t a drug case, so Greuchel never got asked where his fee came from. Anyway, he raises all the usual: ineffective assistance, bad search—even though they never actually used anything they took from the place where Wychek was living—‘cross contamination’ at the crime scene, yadayadayada. Just blowing smoke, getting paid by the page.

“But then he throws in that the Queens cops used information they got from a Family Court case against the same defendant, out in Nassau County. Wychek had been charged with sexual abuse of his live-in girlfriend’s kid. It never went to trial. Wychek consented to a finding of neglect, agreed to move out of the house, have no contact with the victim, and that was it.”

“What’s that got to do with anything?”

“Supposedly, the CPS caseworker testified at some preliminary hearing. About a ski mask that the little girl said Wychek always put on when he was . . . molesting her. And the caseworker found the ski mask; it was still at the home of the live-in girlfriend.”

“But you said they never used—”