always knows how to choose the most elegant word.’
Thornton leaned back in the leather seat. His shoulders relaxed, as if realizing he was dealing with a hopeless situation. ‘Russell, I’ve known you since you were a little boy. Don’t you think-’
‘Counsellor, you’re not here to condemn or absolve. There are judges for that. Or to preach to me. There are priests for that. You just have to get me out of trouble when you’re asked to.’ Russell turned to look at him, with a half-smile on his lips. ‘It seems to me that’s what you’re paid for. Very well paid, with an hourly fee that’s the equivalent of what a factory worker earns in a week.’
‘Get you out of trouble, did you say? That’s what I keep doing. Just lately, it seems to me I’ve had to do it more often than could reasonably be expected.’
The lawyer paused, as if to decide whether to say what he had to say or not.
‘Russell, everyone has the constitutional right to destroy himself as he sees fit. The only thing limiting him is his imagination. And you have an extremely creative imagination when it comes to such things.’ He looked Russell straight in the eyes, no longer a counsel for the defence but a gleeful executioner. ‘From now on, I’ll be happy to give up my fee. I’ll tell your mother to look elsewhere when necessary. And I’ll sit there with a cigar and a glass of good whisky and watch the spectacle of your ruin.’
Nothing else was said because there was nothing else to say. The limousine dropped him outside his building on 29th Street, between Park and Madison. He got out without saying goodbye and without waiting for the lawyer to say goodbye to him. Not that he would have: his attitude was one of barely concealed human contempt combined with professional indifference. Russell grabbed his keys in passing from the doorman and went up to his apartment. He had just opened the door when the telephone started ringing. Russell was sure he knew who it was. He lifted the receiver and said, ‘Hello?’ expecting to hear a particular voice. And that voice had come.
‘Hi, photographer. Things didn’t work out too well for you yesterday, I hear. The game, the cops.’
Russell had an image in his mind. A big black man with his dark glasses and a double chin that his goatee didn’t do much to conceal, sunk deep in the back seat of his Mercedes, his beringed hand holding a cellphone.
‘LaMarr, I’m not in the mood right now to listen to your bullshit. What do you want?’
‘You know what I want, boy. Money.’
‘Right now I don’t have any.’
‘Then you’d better get some as soon as possible.’
‘What do you plan to do? Shoot me?’
From the other end came a loud, contemptuous laugh. The threat in that laugh was particularly humiliating.
‘That’s very tempting. But I’m not so dumb I’ll put you in a box with the fifty thousand dollars you owe me in your pocket. I’ll just send over a couple of my boys to teach you some of the facts of life. Then I’ll give you time to get over it. And then I’ll send them over again and hope this time you’ll have my money ready for them. Which by the way will be sixty thousand by then, maybe more, who knows.’
‘You’re a piece of shit, LaMarr.’
‘Yes. And I can’t wait to show you how much of a shit I am. Bye now, asshole. Try going on the Wheel of Fortune – maybe you’ll have better luck.’
Jaws clenched, Russell put down the receiver, silencing the echo of LaMarr’s laughter. LaMarr Monroe was one of the biggest sons of bitches ever to prowl the streets of New York. Unfortunately, Russell knew he wasn’t talking for the sake of talking. He was a guy who kept his promises, and who’d do anything rather than lose face.
He went in the bedroom and undressed, throwing his clothes on the floor. The torn jacket ended up in the garbage. Next he went in the bathroom and forced himself to take a shower and a shave, avoiding the temptation to put the foam on the mirror instead of on his face. In order not to see his face. In order not to see his expression. After that, he found himself alone in the apartment. And by alone he meant having nothing to drink, not a single line of cocaine and not a cent in his pocket.
The apartment where he lived was unofficially his but in fact it was owned by one of his family’s companies. Even the furniture had been chosen – tastefully – by a designer paid by his mother from among the vast choice available at budget prices from Ikea and similar stores. The reason was simple. Everyone knew that Russell would have sold anything of value he had in his possession and the money would have gone on gambling.
That had happened often enough in the past.
Cars, watches, paintings, carpets.
Everything.
With destructive rage and maniacal precision.
Russell sat down on one of the couches. He could have phoned Miriam or one of the other models he’d been seeing lately, but having them around meant that after a while he’d have to put a little white powder on the table. And he’d also have to have the money to take them out.
Or rather, a name.
Ziggy.
He’d met that colourless little man a few years earlier. He’d been one of his brother’s informants, someone who sometimes gave him tips about interesting things happening in the city, the kind of things he defined as ‘over the edge’, which were good to know about because they might turn out to be stories. Since Robert’s death they’d kept in touch, though for very different reasons. One of these was that, in his brother’s memory, Ziggy supplied him with what he needed and gave him credit. He even helped him out with a few small loans when, as was the case now, he was in a tight corner. Russell didn’t know why Ziggy was so fond of him and trusted him like that. But it was a given, and when necessary he took advantage of it.
Unfortunately Ziggy didn’t use a cellphone, and getting in touch with him usually took a while. After a bit of nervous pacing around the living room and bedroom, he came to a decision. He went down to the garage and took out the car, which he drove rarely and reluctantly. Maybe because it was a cheap Nissan that wasn’t even registered in his name. He checked there was enough gas in the tank to get there and back. He knew where Ziggy lived, and he set off for Brooklyn. The journey was a kind of blur. He saw the city speed past without seeing it, paying it back for the fact that it didn’t see him.
His lip hurt and his eyes smarted, in spite of his sunglasses.
He crossed the bridge, ignoring the skylines of Manhattan and Brooklyn Heights, and plunged into neighbourhoods where ordinary people lived ordinary lives. Places that had no illusions any more, places where nothing ever worked out. Places roughly drawn in the faded colours of reality, where he often came because it was here that he found the secret gambling joints he liked to visit – it was here that anyone could find what they needed.
You just needed to have few scruples and a lot of money.
He reached Ziggy’s place almost without realizing it. He parked just past the building, and after taking a few steps found himself pushing open the entrance door and descending the stairs that led to the basement. There were no doormen here, and the entryphone was a formality nobody bothered with any more. At the foot of the stairs he turned left. The walls were industrial brick, hurriedly painted in a colour that must once have been beige, and was now covered in stains. There was a smell of boiled cabbage and damp in the air. He turned the corner, and saw a line of faded brown doors in front of him. Someone was coming out of the one he was heading for, on the right-hand side towards the end of the corridor. A man in a green military jacket with a blue hood pulled down over his head, who moved quickly and resolutely to the end of the corridor and disappeared around the opposite corner.
Russell didn’t pay much attention to him, thinking only that he was one of the people Ziggy came into contact with every day in his line of business. When he reached Ziggy’s door, he found it ajar. He pushed the handle and his eyes took in the room and then everything happened as if he was seeing things frame by frame on a Moviola.
An image of Ziggy on his knees on the floor with his shirt all stained with blood, clutching at a chair and trying to pull himself to his feet
