First off: A good payoff wouldn't have meant anything to Jean. Jean had always been paid and paid well for what he did, but that was never why he did it. With Jean, it was strictly an affair of the heart; a wronged one, a smashed-to-smithereens one. Santini had once said that every case for Jean was the same case, and that the case was his own. And Santini, for once, had been right; every red file had as much to do with Jean as it did with his criminal of the week. If he was obsessed, and okay, maybe he was, it wasn't with money.
So maybe Jean was trying to impress her, to prick her interest a little so she'd maybe see beyond his eighty- year-old body, just another bit of playacting. Fine. Only impressing people had never been very important to Jean either, had always, you might say, been of zero importance to him. So why change now? And why start saying too much when he'd always said too little?
So okay. Maybe the only people who really knew Jean were the ones in that picture he carried around with him, but William knew this: If Jean said he'd been given the biggest case of his life, it'd be smart to believe him.
There. Almost eighty and almost dead, but some way, somehow, he may just have gotten hold of a live one.
While William had been weaving baskets, Jean was out there weaving cases, and had found one case bigger than anything that had ever come his way before.
And there, ladies and gentlemen, you have it.
And now that he had it, William could forget about it. After all, he had things to do. Sure he did. If he just gave himself a minute or two he could think of something he had to do today.
Of course.
All those horses just waiting to take his money. That huge pile of losing tickets just itching for a few additions from yours truly. If he didn't lose to OTB, who would? They absolutely depended on him. Of course they did.
Okay, this was the problem. It was the horses' names. That was one thing. There he was, giving the racing form the benefit of his practiced eye, and what do you think he saw there?
First race: Prince Jean. Swear to God, right there listed fourth-Prince Jean.
And in the second race: Moses. No, he wasn't kidding-there it was in black and white. Some Israeli owner named Yehudi. An Orthodox jockey maybe? Moses-son of Esther, who must have instilled a lot of guilt in her son about ever finishing second. After all, his track record was strictly first-rate. Moses-listed two-to-one in the second at Belmont.
So now he was really starting to get spooked. Starting to think that maybe there was a message there. Those horses' names-that was one thing.
And his fellow horse-players-that was the other.
Maybe it's the way they looked. Like him. As if they'd given some real thought to things they had to do today and all they'd managed to come up with was this. Like him. Even Jilly-he looked like him too-and Augie, back on his favorite stool with the racing form supporting his elbows like a place mat.
Funny how that had never bothered him before. Odd how it did now. There was this absolute lethargy in the middle of the OTB office that was positively draining. Okay, it was disrupted periodically by the actual races, when the crowd would suddenly and halfheartedly spring to life for about two minutes or so. Then right back to sleep. Think of an old married couple giving it the once for old times' sake. Not that he was an expert on old married couples-he'd had to get old all by his lonesome.
There'd never been a Rachel Two of course-that's a fact. There was very briefly a Catherine Anne, who hadn't lasted long enough to understand why he didn't care to talk about Rachel One. Catherine, a soon-to-be- divorcee, who'd hired him to find out if her husband was cheating on her-yes, he was-and if so, with whom-a fellow schoolteacher at Public School 171, home room and Romance languages. Name of Harold.
Nice girl, he supposed, but without a Chinaman's chance against her. He'd given Rachel the Ford Fairlane, half the profit from the sale of their Elmont home-not much, considering most of it was owed-and a more than generous piece of his still bleeding heart. The absence of her was simply greater than the presence of Catherine Anne. That's all.
Okay… maybe that wasn't all. Rachel had left him carless and homeless (throw in nearly penniless too), but worse yet, she'd left him with the kind of suspicious nature that finally and at last suited his life's work. William's new credo: a cuckold behind every vow, a cheater behind every shade-his included, especially his. This kind of outlook not particularly conducive to trusting long- term relationships. Catherine Anne-a good Irish Catholic who toiled somewhere in the bowels of the Garment Center and no stranger to betrayal herself, soon tired of being asked five times why she hadn't bothered to answer the phone the other night. Or where exactly she'd gone on her day off. Not because it was his right to know, or even really his desire to know (it wasn't like he was in love with her)-but simply because it was now his nature to know. What the scorpion said to the frog after fatally stinging him while being piggybacked across the pond-why the frog asking, why both of them caterwauling to the bottom. And the scorpion's response: Because it's my nature bub, because it's my nature.
And then, he'd known Rachel forever and a day-the kind of history that's pretty much impossible to surmount, especially the day part. His first image of Rachel being a thin blond girl throwing her head back in unabashed laughter on the corner at Martin Van Buren High School. His last image of Rachel being the woman he loved with her legs wrapped around someone else. And in between, more or less, his life.
Catherine Anne, any woman who might be unlucky enough to meet him, deserved better. He deserved worse. William had had to grow old and defeated all alone.
Now, losing his money didn't seem like such a hoot anymore. Now he started thinking again about other things he had to do today. And the only thing he could come up with, swear to God, was you know what.
So there he was again, ruminating about that old geriatric gumshoe Jean. About that tattoo. About the photo of the three of them. Which suddenly, just like that, became a bunch of other photos.
Well, what do you know?
So now, what he had to do today was suddenly clear as day. And while the pain in William's shoulder was still there, still warning him back, the pain in his gut was urging him forward. Break them… break them… whispering insidiously to him and getting him all riled up.
Look at it this way, he said to himself.
At least, it's somewhere to go.
ELEVEN
Rodriguez was on the roof. A boy had answered Rodriguez's door and told William where he could find him. On the roof. Catching some rays in a white beach chair, beer cooler to his right, radio to his left, oiled from top to bottom with Bain de Soleil; William saw the plastic bottle discarded on the rooftop. A pair of mirrored sunglasses reflected half sky and half tar. He was singing along to something catchy and sophisticated. Do it doggie… 'Rodriguez!' William called out to him. No answer; Rodriguez hadn't heard him. William had to take a walk on tar beach, sinking a half inch into the roof with each step, then tap him on the shoulder before Rodriguez knew he had company. Rodriguez stared at him. William's sweat-soaked face stared back, two very tired, very old-looking sweat-soaked faces, one to a lens. 'Sorry,' Rodriguez said. 'I already sold them.' 'Them…?' 'The drapes. You said you didn't want them.' 'That's okay. I don't.' 'Fine.' Rodriguez turned back toward the sun. Doggie style makes me smile… 'Rodriguez,' William said again. 'Yeah?' 'What didn't you give me.' 'Huh…?' 'Was there something you didn't give me?' 'Yeah. The license.' 'Besides the license?' 'The drapes.'
'Not the drapes. Something else?' 'I'm not following you, Cochise.' 'Was there anything else? Anything you didn't give me?'
'Like what?'
'Like pictures maybe?'
'Huh?' Doggie… doggie… doggie style… 'Pictures,' William repeated. 'I gave you a picture.'
